Three Easy Automations to Grow Your WordPress Business

Growing your WordPress business can feel like trying to push a rock up a hill—a very big rock, up a very steep hill. But, with Uncanny Automator, you can lighten the load by automating your workflows.

With these three automations, you can roll out the red carpet for your new members, go viral on social media and celebrate your successes with your team (from a beach somewhere warm and sunny, preferably).

The best part is, all three of these automations are code and cost FREE.

An Introduction to Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator will be the one pushing that proverbial rock up the hill for you, so it’s good to get to know a little about it first. As the #1 WordPress automator, Uncanny can help you connect your various plugins and apps, eliminate the need for expensive development and replace cumbersome tools.

Automator works using recipes, combinations of triggers and actions that connect your plugins and apps and automate your workflows between them.

Getting started with Uncanny Automator is totally free—you don’t even need to sign up with a credit card. And, before you commit to a paid plan, Automator will give 250 free app credits so you can try out some app integrations. With Automator, you’ll be integrating your way to a bigger, better WordPress business.

Easy Automation #1: On-board New Members

Nothing says, “Welcome!” to a new subscriber quite like a personalized greeting—or a whole bunch of them! In this automation, we’ll show you how you can roll out the red carpet (albeit a virtual one) for your newest members using Uncanny Automator and Ultimate Member.

Introduction to Ultimate Member

Ultimate Member is a powerful WordPress membership plugin—so why not pair it with the #1 WordPress automation plugin! With Ultimate Member, WordPress users can easily register, manage and engage with their site members. Create custom forms and restrict content and build user profiles that tell your members’ stories.

Ultimate Member is free for everyone to get started and economical whenever you’re ready to upgrade. Paid plans allow you to take advantage of premium extensions such as user tags, social logins and member groups.

Click here to download the free Ultimate Member plugin so you can follow the recipe and welcome your new members in style.

Step 1: Publish Your Ultimate Member Registration Form

Once you’ve installed and activated Ultimate Member on your WordPress site, you can find the Default Registration form in your WordPress Admin Sidebar under Ultimate Member > Forms. You can either create a new registration form or, more easily, edit the existing one to match your needs and style.

There are a few ways to publish the form:

1. Agree to Ultimate Members’ WordPress Admin Notice near the top of your WordPress Admin screen. This will create several new pages, including a page with only the Default Registration form under the url slug /register/.
2. You can copy and paste the Default Registration form shortcode into one of your existing pages or a new page of your own design. You can find the shortcode on the right-hand side of the form editor screen.

Important: However you choose to edit your registration form, you’ll need to include an email address field for this recipe to work.

Step 2: Select Your Recipe Type & Name

From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Automator > Add New. In the pop-up window that appears, select Logged-in users.

Given that this recipe type only works on users who are already logged in, we know what you’re thinking: “But my members aren’t signed up yet!” Don’t worry—this is the magic of automation!

It’s good to develop a naming convention for your recipes so that they are easily recognizable at a glance. We’ve simply named this recipe Member On-boarding.

Step 3: Configure Your Trigger

In the Triggers panel, select Ultimate Member.

In the drop-down list that appears, select A user logs in with a form.

Select your registration form then click Save and make sure that your trigger is set to Live. When you’re finished, it should look like this:

Step 4: Configure Your Action

In the Actions panel, click Add action and select WordPress.

From the drop-down list that appears, select Send an email.

Automator will present you with an email editor. In the To field, select User email.

You can then configure the rest of your email, including the title and body style, in whichever way you think best welcomes your new members to your community. This is where you get to be creative so don’t hold back!

When you’re finished, click Save and make sure that your action is set to Live. It should look like this:

Step 5: Go Live and Thrive!

Now that you’ve set up your basic trigger and action, you’re ready to take your recipe to the table—or, more accurately, the internet. In the upper right-hand corner, toggle your recipe from Draft to Live and get ready to welcome your new members with open arms.

But, we promised a red carpet and one email is just a mat—albeit a nice mat. With Automator, you can set up multiple actions to create a more extensive and immersive on-boarding experience for your members, i.e., a real drip campaign!

Click Add another action as many times as you’d like and create a series of emails to get your newest members up to speed. Add links to must-read material, include brief tutorials on their new account and let them know about some of your best offerings. Of course, you don’t want to overwhelm your new members with too much at once so you’ll need to carefully mete out your drip campaign emails. Uncanny Automator can help you with that too.

Hover over the three dots in each of your individual actions, click Delay and send emails out in an easily digestible timeline.

With automations like these, you’re going to need a bigger red carpet. When your membership and business grows, you can create even more powerful email campaigns by pairing Automator with customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as Groundhogg, ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp.

If you’re running a different membership platform, such as MemberPress, this recipe will work for you as well!

Easy Automation #2: Go Viral on Social Media

If it didn’t happen on social media then…did it happen at all? According to Insider Intelligence, social commerce—i.e., commerce conducted on or through social media platforms—will reach nearly $80 billion by 2025 in the US alone. That’s a lot of Likes, Retweets and Shares and it underscores the importance of building your social media presence to grow your WordPress business.

With Uncanny Automator, you can easily integrate your social media accounts and share your content and your products with your community across multiple channels in just a click.

How to Connect Your Social Media Account to Automator

Uncanny Automator has an extensive Knowledge Base for new and experienced users alike. You can find all of the articles you need to connect your social media accounts to Automator by clicking the links below:

1. Connect Facebook Groups
2. Connect Facebook Pages
3. Connect a Twitter Account
4. Connect a Instagram Business Account

We’ve included an abridged version of the guide on connecting Facebook Groups to Automator because that’s the example we’ll use going forward:

1. From your Facebook account page, navigate to Groups and select the group(s) that you would like to connect to Automator. Note, you’ll need to have Admin permissions to these groups.
2. Once you’re in the group’s page, scroll down to Group settings in the sidebar then click the Edit icon next to Apps.
3. Type “automator” into the search bar, select Uncanny Automator then click Add.
4. From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Automator > Settings > Premium Integrations and select Facebook Groups.
5. Click Connect Facebook account and follow the prompts.

Step 1: Select Your Recipe Type & Name

From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Automator > Add New. In the pop-up window that appears, select Logged-in users.

We’ve named this recipe WordPress Posts to Facebook Groups.

Step 2: Configure Your Trigger

In the Triggers panel, select WordPress.

From the drop-down list that appears, select A user publishes a type of post with a taxonomy term in a taxonomy.

You can then choose your exact post type (i.e., blog post, product, page, etc.) and the taxonomy term (i.e., categories, tags, etc.). This allows you to filter the kind of content that you want to share with specific Facebook groups or across different social media platforms.

When you’re finished, your trigger should look something like this:

Step 3: Configure Your Action

In the Actions panel, click Add action and select Facebook Groups. From the drop-down list that appears, select Publish a post with an image to a Facebook group.

In the post editor, select the Facebook group that you would like to share your posts to. In the Image URL field, select Post featured image URL.

The Message field is where you can get creative. From the drop-down list, select Post content to share everything with your Facebook group or Post excerpt followed by Post URL to tease your content then direct your Facebook friends to your website.

Once you’ve edited your message, click Save. Don’t forget to toggle your recipe from Draft to Live. Once you’re finished, your recipe should look like this:

Add more actions to share your content and products across all of your social media channels when you click publish on your posts. With automations this seamless, you’ll be #trending in no time!

Easy Automation #3: Celebrate Your Success

Now that you’re getting the hang of making recipes with Uncanny Automator, you probably have enough recipe ideas to fill a restaurant menu! And with your viral social media content attracting new members to your site like moths to a flame, you’ll want to celebrate your success with your team. And why not? You pushed a rock up a hill, after all!

With this automation, you can send Slack notifications to your team any time a user purchases a specific product from your WooCommerce store.

Introduction to Slack

Slack is an instant messaging platform designed and built with the workplace in mind. Its ease-of-use and enhanced functionality, however, has made it a favorite for personal and social chat groups as well.

With more than 2,000 apps in the Slack App Directory, it’s a breeze to integrate this messaging platform into your existing workflows. When you pair Slack with Uncanny Automator, you can send yourself automated notifications to abreast of the latest developments—even if you’re on the beach.

Try Slack for free so you can follow along in this example.

Introduction to WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the #1 WordPress e-commerce plugin—and it’s not hard to understand why. With WooCommerce, businesses big and small can build stunning and functional online stores to sell physical and digital products.

Create beautiful and branded displays to rival any boutique and handle all of your shipping and inventory in one central place. Click here to sign up with WooCommerce and get started.

Step 1: Connect Your Slack Account to Automator

You can find a detailed step-by-step guide on connecting your Slack account to Automator in our Knowledge Base by clicking here or find the abridged version below:

1. From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Automator > Settings > Premium Integrations and select Slack.
2. Click Connect Slack workspace and follow the prompts.
3. From your Slack workspace, navigate to Apps > Uncanny Automator and click Add. You can then add or remove the app from your various channels.

Step 2: Select Your Recipe Type & Name

From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Automator > Add New. In the pop-up window that appears, select Logged-in users.

We’ve named this recipe WooCommerce-Slack: Celebration because those are the integrations we’re going to use.

Step 3: Configure Your Trigger

In the Triggers panel, select WooCommerce.

From the drop-down list, select A user completes, pays for, lands on a thank you page for an order with a product.

In the Trigger condition field, select pays for then click Save. Automator will prompt you to select a product. For simplicity, we’ve simply chosen a placeholder product, Widget 1. After you’ve selected your product, click Save.

The number value will automatically be set to 1 but you can edit that by clicking on the number itself, setting your value and clicking Save. Once you’re finished, your trigger should look something like this:

Step 4: Configure Your Action

In the Actions panel, click Add action and select Slack from the menu of available integrations. From the drop-down list that appears, select Send a direct message to a Slack user. Alternatively, you can select Send a message to a channel if the recipe at hand concerns all members of a certain team.

Next, select the Slack user who you would like to receive the message then configure your message as desired. From the drop-down list, you can select metadata to make the message more interactive.

When you’re finished, click Save. Your action should look like this:

Step 5: Go Live!

Review your trigger and action then toggle your recipe from Draft to Live. Your recipe should look something like this:

Continuing Growing and Automating

We’ve just taken a small nibble at the banquet of recipes you can make with Uncanny Automator. Download new plugins, connect with new integrations and continue automating your workflows to grow your WordPress business—without having to drag that rock up the hill all on your own.

What are some of the recipes that you would like to try? Let us know in the comments section below.

Happy automating—and growing!