Jeffrey Rohrs with ActiveCampaign

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Chicago, Illinois, it’s time for Chicago Business Radio, brought to you by Firm Space, Your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm space.com. Now here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor. And before we get started, as always, today’s show is sponsored by FirmSpace. And thanks to FirmSpace because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we got a good one for you today. On today’s episode, we have the VP of Brand Marketing of ActiveCampaign, Mr. Jeff Rohrs. Welcome to the show, Jeff.

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:00:44] Thanks, Max. Happy to be here.

Max Kantor: [00:00:46] Uh, so let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit about who you are, what your role is, and a little bit about active campaign.

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:00:53] Sure. So active campaign helps small teams power big businesses with intelligent marketing automation. So most people are familiar with email marketing. And really, what’s happened over the last ten years or so is that the technologies and tools have been democratized. They’re available for anybody, whether you are a one person company or you are tens of thousands. And we help companies of all sizes, of all industries use intelligent marketing automation to save time to grow their companies, increase profitability, to increase their reach and build audiences. And and so my role at as the VP of Brand Marketing is to increase awareness of what we do, connect with those audiences of customers and partners and prospects around the globe and and ultimately try and help folks, you know, power their businesses in better and more efficient ways.

Max Kantor: [00:01:46] So I understand that active campaign can can help small teams power big businesses. So how are you doing that, exactly? For anyone listening who’s like, what is active campaign like, how can it help me? How can active campaign help these small teams?

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:02:02] Sure. So when you’re a business, there are a lot of marketing needs that you have. And obviously digital marketing is is really what is ruling the roost these days connecting with consumers electronically, moving them through a customer journey, customer life cycle, and being on top of things so that you’re communicate with communicating with them. Whether you’ve got a new product, a service, you’re trying to be responsive in customer service or other touchpoints along that journey. And what we effectively do is have a platform for email and other type of communication. We integrate with over 950 different types of technologies. And even more than that, through great partners like Zapier. And what it allows you to do is draw data from different systems that you might have already in place, whether it’s a CRM through us or, say, Salesforce could be information that you have about customers in an e-commerce system. It could be Google Sheets, it could be ads that you’re running. But the bottom line is you’re trying to gather the information that you have about customers so that you can be very responsive in the moment. So let’s let’s use the example of somebody comes to your website and they’re looking for information, and maybe they fill out a form because they want to hear from you in terms of an email newsletter. Well, in the old days you used to have that they’d sign up and maybe you’d send them one email just thanking them for subscription.

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:03:24] Well, with intelligent marketing automation, what we can do is set up a series and that can be entirely automated and based on how they behave if they, you know, sign up for that first newsletter and they convert right away, you might change the behavior of the the communications that you have with them, shift into a different type of cadence of of conversation. And if they don’t, you may want to keep them on a drip campaign so that you’re giving them more and more information until they become very comfortable with purchasing. So that’s one example. And another is if you’re an e-commerce company, an e-commerce merchant, if you have folks shopping on the site and they abandon their cart, you know, it’s great to try and recover that lost opportunity. So having an automation that sends out an abandoned shopping cart, reminding them that they have items in their in their cart to purchase is a great way to ultimately boost revenue and and keep that customer engaged. So it’s really this kind of dimensional thinking about your business, using technology to automate those things. So you don’t have to be the one doing it over and over and over again. And that’s really where the power of the platform comes in to help grow company, help you get more profitable and help you save a lot of time.

Max Kantor: [00:04:36] Yeah. So it sounds like to me you’re just really helping businesses talk to their customers and to adjust with how a business talks to a customer depending on the situation.

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:04:49] Absolutely. And that’s and again, that is the power of of automation. When you integrate the different systems that you have and you have the different signals coming from those systems in the form of data. What? You’re really doing is getting the value of the data that those business systems produce, and you’re using it to power personalized, timely, relevant communications. At the moment, they matter most.

Max Kantor: [00:05:11] And if I was a small business owner listening to the episode right now, do I need a certain customer size to use active campaign, or can I use you guys from really day one?

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:05:22] You can use this from day one. That’s the power of the platform because we are we’re simple but not simplistic. And what I mean by that is if you just need an email marketing solution, we can be there. However, email marketing isn’t where it should end. It should graduate up. As you get more familiar with how you want to run the business into automations. Those are the things that run while you sleep, and they make your business much more responsive to a customer or a prospect’s needs. So we see a lot of customers start with us as solopreneurs, and then as they grow and as they add team members, they get a greater level of complexity to their program. And that’s really the the place that our our platform, that active campaign really shines, because we have that level of sophistication that you can get to over the time of your business maturing. You don’t have to necessarily use it from day one, but knowing that it’s there gives you the comfort that you’re going to be able to have a partner that grows with you. And then you put on top of that the community of of of customers and partners we have helping each other, the resources we have, the training. We really work hard to make sure that our customers not only succeed, but they get value on day one and day two and every day after.

Max Kantor: [00:06:40] Now, something that I think is cool that you guys do is every so often active campaign will host events. And I know because I was fortunate enough to attend one of the events and you got a really cool one coming up because as we all know, it’s 2024 and we have a bonus day. It’s it’s a leap year. We do. It’s it’s it’s a free day for us to do whatever we want. Uh, and so you guys are partnering with Calendly, Gold Coast, Gold Coast and the juice um, on active campaigns, leap Day extravaganza. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:07:13] Yes. So this was born of the idea that, hey, isn’t it crazy that every four years we’re just given magically 24 hours to do with as we please? Um, and when you really take a step back, that is kind of a nutty thing that we just have to rebalance our calendars, and it goes all the way back to Julius Caesar. Uh, when he established that, uh, in like 350 something BCE. So we were pondering this and said, well, wait a second, what if we what if we really owned Leap Day? Because the idea of giving you time is very much in line with the idea of intelligent marketing automation. In fact, when you automate things, it’s giving you back time that you would have otherwise spent on these arduous manual tasks. And so the theme of the event is make more time. And what we have done is we have pulled together, uh, you know, over 25 sponsors, over 100 speakers on topics ranging from AI to marketing to email to careers to leadership, uh, to sales. And every single speaker is going to be talking about how you can use technology strategy or process improvements to make more time in 2024. So it’s a free event. It is completely virtual. And, uh, folks are able to register right now. In fact, uh, launched it today and uh, excited that folks can go register at leap day.activecampaign.com and they can dip in or out for all of the 29 hours. You don’t have to sit through all of it like I will be doing. Um, but it will also be available on demand. So people who register are not only going to get to to attend the days that it runs, uh, but also throughout March.

Max Kantor: [00:08:56] And tell us who can attend. Who is this open to?

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:09:00] So this is targeted towards marketers and entrepreneurs who are looking to, uh, automate and find efficiencies and productivity gains in their business. And just as we serve folks from solopreneurs on up to large companies, so to our sponsors are bringing those kind of audiences to the table, uh, but where it will probably resonate, most are going to be those folks who are, you know, dealing with, um, you know, perhaps they’re in a marketing team that has fewer people than it had last year, or they’re being asked to do more with less, uh, or their budgets are limited. This is a scrappy event on our side, and it is meant to give folks a lot of ideas on how they can again, reclaim time, make more time, and then be able to deploy it for the things that they want to. Right? If you don’t have to do all the manual, arduous tasks around marketing communications, um, you know, uh, customer service, etc., you’ve got more automations in place. That’s giving you time that then you can go focus. Let’s say you want to focus it on your business strategy. Maybe you want to focus on coaching your employees up so that they are better able to serve your customers. Or maybe you want time back because you want to spend more time with your family or your friends, or on your hobbies. I mean, we have a great customer, um, uh, body yoga and surf. And he actually had said something to us that kind of triggered the idea for this event and said that, you know, active campaign gives me back time so I can spend more time surfing, which is what I love to do. So that’s what the best technologies should do for us in our business, is give us time back so that we can be even more productive and even more present in our lives.

Max Kantor: [00:10:41] Um hum. Um, Jeff, I just have one more question for you. This is how I like to wrap up every episode of Chicago Business Radio. Um, you’re hearing you talk about the event and what active campaign is. Uh, you’re very passionate about what you do, and that’s how it comes across. Uh, can you tell me what’s the most rewarding part of what you do for Active Campaign?

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:11:03] What a wonderful question. And it comes at right in a perfect moment. Uh, I have so enjoyed being a connector in building this event collaboratively, not only with my team, but each of the sponsors and the speakers. And I think each of them is dealing with that notion of having to do more with less in their own way this year. Um, you know, as the markets changed from, uh, really rewarding growth at all costs and, you know, uh, burning cash was not a problem for a lot of tech companies. The flip in the last two years has been to be profitable and grow based out of those profits. And active campaign did that successfully, as did many of the other partners. But they are now in a position where they have big dreams and they’ve got big goals. They’ve got to hit, but they don’t have necessarily the same budget and the same staff. And so to lock arms with these folks in a very collaborative way that is driven by partnership and relationship is where I get my energy. And this has been so enjoyable.

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:12:07] And, you know, I am so excited to get folks in the door for this event because I think it is very different than a user conference or a traditional marketing event. It is going to have, uh, bite sized content from 5 minute to 10 minute to 15 to 20 minute presentations. And again, because it’s running continuously 29 hours on the 29th, as we’re saying. And that’s simply because of the magic of time zones, right? So in Australia, we’re starting at 8 a.m. on leap Day, whereas in the Central Time zone we’re starting at 3 p.m. on the 28th. But people can join at their own leisure over those hours. And even if they miss it, they don’t have to feel stressed because it’s going to be available on demand. Thanks to our great, uh, platform partner, uh, Gold Cast. And that partnership is is really shown in the fact that Calendly gold cast and the Jews came to the table and said, yeah, we want to do this. And that really put momentum in it and got everybody else on board.

Max Kantor: [00:13:02] So, Jeff, remind us, uh, for people who want to learn more about Active campaign or learn more, slash participate in the active campaign, Leap Day extravaganza. Uh, do you have a website? Do you have social media people can go to?

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:13:16] Absolutely. So two websites for you. First of all, uh, active campaign. Com if you’re interested in doing a free trial, a two week free trial that’s available on our site, completely self-serve, and you can get, uh, your, your hands around the product, uh, get some training and, uh, introduction to how it works. And then with regard to the event, you do not need to be an active campaign customer or partner. It’s completely free. And you just go and register at Leap day. Dot active campaign.com.

Max Kantor: [00:13:48] Awesome. Well, Jeff, thanks so much for being on the show today. Uh, exciting to talk about how you’re going to spend your leap day. And it sounds like you got an exciting event ahead of you.

Jeffrey Rohrs: [00:13:57] We sure do. And, Max, I really do appreciate the time and appreciate your listeners time.

Max Kantor: [00:14:01] Not a problem at all. And thank you for listening to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and we’ll see you next time.

Speaker1: [00:14:11] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by Firm Space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.