Sponsor Wrangler Maddy Osman talks with Adam Warner, a sponsor representative who does Global Field Marketing for GoDaddy Pro.
We talked about Adam’s role at GoDaddy Pro, how the company’s events team is adapting to a virtual landscape, and some of the fun things they’re planning for WordCamp Denver.
(Unedited) Transcript:
Hi, I’m Maddy Osman the sponsor Wrangler for word camp Denver 2020.
today I’m joined by Adam Warner of GoDaddy pro.
we’re just going to talk about what GoDaddy pro does, what Adam does and just word, press and word camps in general.
yeah, maybe just give yourself a quick introduction, Adam, what do you do for goDaddy pro?
Yeah.
Hey thanks Maddie.
Happy to be here.
my official title is global field marketing, senior manager, but I don’t hardly know what that means.
Half the time.
It’s a very kind of a vague title.
what it means really is that I manage our global WordPress sponsorship, which gives us access to all word camps around the world.
on a daily basis, I’m a longtime WordPress user, since 2005.
so, the majority of my job is figuring out how we can, engage with attendees at word camps.
let them know obviously about, GoDaddy pro what we do, what the platform is, what the community around it is, and basically just be part of the community.
Awesome.
maybe we could take a step back here and just talk about what GoDaddy pro is and how that’s different from the main GoDaddy core offerings.
Right? So GoDaddy as a whole, we have 52 different products, and most people are familiar with domains and hosting a GoDaddy pro is a tool for people who build sites for others.
in other words, if you’re a freelancer or you’re an agency, it’s likely that you have multiple clients that you’re managing at any given time, it’s also likely that you have them on a recurring, maintenance or website care plan.
what those plans typically entail are updating core WordPress software, plugins themes, doing things like backups, security scans, client reporting, all kinds of stuff, and go to any pro as a platform that allows you to connect multiple individual sites and clients into one unified dashboard.
it’s really a way to save time if you’re managing a client’s site.
you can bulk update hundreds of sites, all plugins, all themes, all core, all at the same time, manage all your backups and everything you need to from the platform.
the best part is that it’s free.
there are some add ons that are available.
if you were to purchase every add on for every single, for an individual site, it would be a maximum of $9 per site per month.
However a couple of important notes, go to any pro does not require GoDaddy hosting that works with any host.
if you do host with GoDaddy on our, managed WordPress plans or our managed and commerce plans that, go any pro the premium ad-ons, those $9, do come included for free.
Very nice.
are there any cool features that you’re working on for GoDaddy pro or are things about the future that you’d like to share with us today?
Yeah.
I can tell you this.
I came on with GoDaddy, just over a year and a half ago now on the GoDaddy pro team on this tool and this brand team, and seeing things from the other side, and knowing what we have planned, we’ve already done a rebrand, and a reorganization of the navigation and the UI of the tool itself.
If you go to godaddy.com/pro, you’ll see what I mean.
there are a lot more features and benefits coming to the platform and to the program itself.
you use GoDaddy pro you become a member of the GoDaddy program, which then allows you to earn reward points for any things, anything that you purchase within your own GoDaddy account, but also if you have your clients giving you delegated access to manage their products, anything that you purchase on their behalf to your earn reward points.
to go back, there are a lot of features coming, and, I, I can’t say too much about it, but I can tell you as a longtime WordPress guy, as a fan of this platform, before I even came on to the company, I’m really excited, for what the next six months here and more will bring.
Nice.
Well let’s talk about the next six months to a year in how you, as a goal global field manager are adapting.
What are some of the things that you’re doing in your role now that.
Everything’s going virtual? Yeah, well, starting with word camp Asia that was supposed to happen, in February, were right down to the wire with planning.
We had a shipment of our booth, leave Phoenix, and then two days later I had to call DHL and say, can you please stop this shipment? Because, we all know that it has been postponed.
since that time the dominoes fell right.
in terms of, the event world specifically, so we’ve had to pivot, right? We’ve all pivoted to the virtual events and online events and what works at a traditional, well, I won’t say what works, what we are used to doing at an in person word camp, didn’t necessarily, apply to online, right? So there’s been a lot of hurdles.
how do we, how do we have that experience where I’m walking down the hall during sessions, and I’m talking to attendees and introducing myself, how do we have that experience where attendees, stroll up to a sponsor booth, and maybe just listen in on a conversation that’s going on there.
they may not want to necessarily talk to a sponsor, but they just want to hang out, how do we duplicate that? How do we replicate that stuff? It’s been hard? online events are a different kind of approach, but we are, we’re, we’ve been doing some things that we hope are a little more fun.
We’re going to do something new for word camp Denver, and it’s Twitter based.
it’s, it’s a trivia challenge, and we’re really excited about it because we had a lot of fun, first of all, putting it together.
it’s a way for us to engage with people as close to one, as we, as we can get.
the bonus is you take the challenge.
That’s also, it’s WordPress related, but it’s also Denver related.
there’s an opportunity to win some Amazon gift cards.
pivoting to social, has been an important piece of the online virtual world and trying to amplify what we’re doing there, where we’ve always been on Twitter.
We were always tweeting from events and sessions, session quotes and things like that.
we’ll continue to do that, but, yeah, I don’t know if that answers the question, but really pivoting to social, with a bit more focus has been a really important part of the online work camp world.
Yeah.
I mean, it seems like you guys have done a really good job of pivoting in light of everything going suddenly virtual.
I think you guys might’ve even pioneered the trend on doing like sponsor zoom room activations.
that’s been cool to watch and cool to see that just because kinda on lock down right now doesn’t mean that we can’t still find ways to connect.
So.
Yeah, I mean, and that is the overall goal with anything that we do, especially the virtual sponsor booths and the social stuff is w we’re desperately trying to keep that human connection that we all love so much about word camp.
Like I can’t tell you how much I miss seeing somebody and, are you a hugger and then going in for the hug and seeing those people that you may have not seen in a couple of years, before, but we’re doing our best.
Yeah.
I’m I’m definitely missing this time of year.
Just getting ready for the in person event.
That word camp Denver usually is a, I feel the pain as well.
let’s talk a little bit about you.
You told us what we can expect with GoDaddy at word camp Denver this year.
let’s talk just about in general, what are some of the best deals at GoDaddy right now that people should be checking out?
Well, it’s not uncommon, and we’ve seen a lot of companies and brands, do things for their customers that, will help them in this time.
? Right Because there are a lot of people who have lost their jobs.
There are a lot of brick and mortar businesses who’ve had to close.
now, things are starting to reopen in different areas, but that doesn’t mean that those businesses are solid.
what we’ve seen and we’re in a unique position, because we’re completely in the digital world, which is one of the areas that has not for quota, for lack of a better term, been affected by COVID.
were able to put together a movement called open.
We stand, if you go to open, we stand.org.
We’ve partnered with many big brands and companies to offer a discounted products and services to our customers.
at GoDaddy, one of the best deals that we have going on.
I had the pleasure to be involved with, along with many other teams is our partnership with woo commerce for our e-commerce hosting.
we have a, an offer right now that it’s $1 for three months of e-commerce hosting.
It comes with access to 64 plus WooCommerce extensions, premium extensions.
That’s that’s part of the partnership there.
if you are a brick and mortar, or if you are someone who, has lost their job due to, the current situation, and you are pivoting to an online business, there’s no better time to get some e-commerce hosting than to do the $1 for three months.
You have that three months to ramp up, figure it all out and start earning those, the income, from your eCommerce store.
So hopefully it helps.
We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback.
there’s also a lot of user stories coming in, success stories about how they’ve managed to use that.
that is top of mind for me.
Yeah.
I would say for anybody watching this, look out, if you’re an attendee, you will receive access to our sponsor swag bag, which has all sorts of awesome goodies, including access to GoDaddy pros, sponsor, zoom room.
and, and you’ll just get that probably right before the event.
There’ll be a password that you can enter and, yeah, all sorts of great stuff to check out.
definitely stop by GoDaddy prose, zoom room.
it sounds to me like if you’re someone who’s struggling with the COVID situation, they’d probably be really happy to help you out, help you brainstorm.
I’ll be get set up with the new website.
there anything else you want to say before we end this off today?
I just want to invite everybody watching this, that if you’re hesitant about clicking a zoom room link and going to any of the sponsors involved with where camp Denver, if just jumping into a zoom room, please, it’s okay.
you’re not going to get a sales pitch.
we are part of the community where we’re just people hanging out and wanting to chat about WordPress and word camp.
we’re in a position where we could potentially help.
any questions that you have, bring them our way, and we’re happy to chat with you.
Absolutely.
That’s a very good point.
Every time that I’ve ever stopped by a sponsor booth at a physical word camp, it’s always been comradery, fun, meeting new people.
don’t miss the opportunity to forge those connections no matter, how different they look compared to our usual physical sponsor booth.
that’s what word camps are all about, right? Building relationships, making connections, you never know where one thing is going to lead to another.
Absolutely.
Well thank you so much, Adam, for taking the time and for giving us of insight into what you do and what GoDaddy pro does and yeah, for everybody else listening, we’re looking forward to seeing you on Friday and Saturdays.
It’s going to be an awesome event.
Thanks Maddy.
I’m looking forward to it.
Thank you.