From WordCamp Phoenix 2014, I shared a series of helpful tips for business-minded WordPress users so they can improve their marketing and sales performance with their WordPress sites.

1. Insider’s Guide to
Marketing & Selling
with WordPress
@JoeManna | #WCPHX

2. About Me
• WordPress Power-User since 2006!
• Infusionsoft Dev. Partner Program Manager
• Managed two high-traffic blogs that achieves ROI
• Passionate about small businesses and startups
• Loves American Muscle cars.
(I miss my ’98 Camaro)

3. So, what are we going to
talk about?

4. As WordPress platform matures, the need to
drive business results increases substantially.
Whether you’re implementing for yourself or
clients, you need to provide total solutions that
can drive value.
WordPress does have its limits; outside
solutions extend WordPress’ capabilities.

5. Marketing ain’t easy.
Here are a few marketing needs with WordPress
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Web Forms
Landing Pages
Calls to Action
Audience Development
Copy and Content
SEO and Open Graph
Analytics and Measurement

6. … And neither is selling.
Here are a few sales needs with WordPress
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PCI Compliance
Shopping Carts & Order Forms
Post-Sale Experience
Platform Security
Performance
Analytics and Measurement
Automation

7. Marketing with WordPress

8. Web Forms (Opt-Ins)
Collects information about a given topic or interest.
• Used for audience development or lead generation.
• Focus on easy user experience. Less is more.
• Ideal to use WordPress’ native form handling capabilities.
… If possible, use regular HTML Web Forms
• There are some excellent plugins available!

9. Landing Pages
Specific pages designed to attract and collect information about
a given topic or interest.
• Often used for lead generation and e-commerce.
• Be specific. Know your audience and their pains!
• Many themes today support dead-simple landing pages
• Landing Pages are somewhat formulaic:
Headline + Copy (Content) + Call to Action = Landing Page
• When doing PPC, drive traffic to Landing Pages!

10. Thank You Pages
Affirms what action visitors took and gives additional guidance.
• Used for lead generation and sales.
• Reinforce and deliver on expectations.
• Answer FAQs you often get.
• De-list from your sitemap and indexing.
• Idea: Inform visitors what other services/products you offer.
• Simple Page templates are best. Keep visitors focused.

11. Call to Action (Below Post)
Messages designed to compel readers to act on your content.
• Used for audience development, lead generation, sales.
• Use one call to action at a time.
• Many themes today support widgets below the post.
• Make your call to action stand out from your content.
• Track link clicks with Google UTM Tags for later analysis.

12. Email Marketing
Stay in contact with your audience and follow-up with them.
• Bad: By default, WP sends mail from your web server.
• Good: Use a dedicated email service provider.
• Mandrill by MailChimp is a developer’s best friend. You can
configure WP to send all email through it.
• Setup your SPF Record for your domain for maximum deliverability.
• Always set the right expectations at the opt-in.
• Segmentation is key to increase conversions and satisfy your
subscribers.

13. Analytics & Measurement
Measure activities and yield insight into performance.
• Always, always, always setup analytics.
• You can use multiple analytics solutions.
• Get familiar with those solutions to configure goals, ‘actions’
to yield INSIGHT, not just more DATA.
• Use the data to make decisions.

14. Selling with WordPress

15. PCI Compliance
Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance provides basic
standards for security for merchants.
• Look at your Merchant Account agreements – PCI is generally
not optional.
• It’s not so much the certificate that matters, but the processes
to achieve it.
• PCI is focused on wherever credit card data is collected.
• WordPress can become PCI Compliant with a bit of work.
• You can ‘bypass’ WordPress for transactions and be OK.
• Practically all e-commerce solutions are PCI Compliant.

16. E-Commerce on WP
A number of WordPress-ready solutions can help you securely
and reliably sell products.
• WooCommerce is a staple when considering selling on WP.
• Cart66 is great to offload the PCI stress and ‘get it done.’
• Think about your needs today and tomorrow. Have a plan.
• It’s not only about the sale – follow-up is just as important.
• Look for integrations with your marketing software.
• Infusionsoft has apps that sync w/ WooCommerce (InfusedWoo,
Zapier, etc.)

17. E-Commerce Checklist
Here is a checklist of things to do when selling on WordPress.
Setup SSL (HTTPS) on domain.
Verify it works correctly.
SEO metadata configured for
product/sales pages
WordPress configured to serve
pages over HTTPS
Test mobile functionality and
usability
Change default user names and
lower permissions for non admins
HTTP/HTTPS URLs work as designed
Enforce secure passwords on all
users
Load-test the site so it can handle
massive traffic.
Serve your Javascript and CSS over
a secure connection (HTTPS)
If using a caching environment, can
you capture the IP address?
Configure and test Merchant
Account.
Configure Open Graph data and
product images to render properly
Configure Thank You pages as
needed.
Configure analytics to track goals on
successful sales.

18. Analytics

19. JetPack Site Stats
Easy to use analytics for WordPress.
• Takes about 2 minutes to set up.
• Offers basic insights on your traffic and shows you trends
• Does not track goals, Google campaign traffic, PPC traffic, etc.
• Applicable for 90% of people’s needs.
• There’s no excuses to not know your traffic anymore.

20. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the standard for measuring web activities.
• Consider switching to Universal Analytics. More flexible!
• Configure Goals where it makes sense: Thank You pages, ecommerce post-sale pages.
• Tracking custom or canned ‘Events’ allows you measure what
people are doing on your site. GAS.js helps!
• Know how to interpret the data and reports.
• Use data to make decisions: “In data we trust.”

21. Business Intelligence
You need to know how your site drives ROI
• Traffic doesn’t pay the bills. Revenue over expenses does.
• Know what factors result in customer acquisition.
• Measure every stage of your customer lifecycle.
• Wherever possible, track lead sources. Segment by channel
and source to determine healthy investments.
• End game: Highest CLV, Lowest CAC, Lowest Churn.
• A little extra research can help you grow your business.

22. Recommendations

23. Build (and retain) your list.
It’s time to take lead generation seriously
and build your prospect and customer lists.
Deliver value every time so they are LOYAL
and ENGAGED with you.

24. Stop using spreadsheets for
customer data.
Not only is it a huge time-suck, it’s a ticking
time-bomb of liability.
Figure out the tools you need to streamline
and scale your business with WordPress.

25. Managed WordPress
Hosting is well worth it.
Shop around by service quality, uptime,
support and cost of optional upgrades.
Great Managed WordPress hosts are here
supporting WordCamp. (Thank you!)
Ask around. The WP community is the best
filter for making quality recommendations.

26. Get your analytics working.
Make better decisions with data.
Spend some time understanding what the
data means. Help docs good place to start.

27. Don’t do everything all at once.
Focus on what matters first.
Take one step at a time towards excellence.

28. Avoid shiny objects.
Traffic.
Accessibility.
Leads.
Sales.

29. Leverage WordPress and its
ecosystem to the fullest.
While WordPress is free, the ecosystem
provides value. Invest in it.
Tons of new innovations happening more
frequently.

30. Not everything needs to be
built in WordPress.
Consider your needs today and
tomorrow.
The shortest and most direct path to a
client’s benefit wins.

31. Recommended Plugins
WooCommerce
WordPress SEO
JetPack
WordPress HTTPS (SSL)
W3 Total Cache*
Contact Form 7
Mandrill
Cart66 [$]
Genesis Framework [$]
Gravity Forms [$]

32. Let’s get in touch!
Joe Manna
@joemanna
joseph.manna@infusionsoft.com
Do you create e-commerce plugins for WordPress users? Let’s talk!