America’s heartland is growing more than wheat these days… it’s growing a tech industry that competes on the global playing field. Fortunately for these young tech entrepreneurs, there is a strong community in Oklahoma City to nurture and advise them in smart business practices through the Open Beta events.

The Spring Beta was held Thursday, May 2nd, at the IAO Gallery with an after-party at The 404, OKC’s premier coworking space located on Film Row. With food and drinks provided, ample time for networking and a dozen speakers covering a wide range of topics in a lightning talk format, Open Beta is an entrepreneur’s dream. “The Spring Beta was a soft re-launch of the Open Beta series of events,” said Eric Granata, Director of Ecommerce at ROBYN. “It was limited to 100 attendees, but the October event will be wide open.”

From venture funding to bootstrapping, the Spring Beta was chock full of presentations designed to help young start-ups. “There were talks about emerging technologies, 3D printing, how to raise venture capital… even how to cold call properly,” said Eric.

“The idea is to have these Open Beta events twice a year,” says John Kerber, organizer of the event. “While the Spring Beta was more start-up focused than previous ones, we’re planning the Fall Beta to be more encompassing of all things disruptive… of people who are trying to build a better world.” Speaking of building a better world, even the swag bags each attendee received were made from recycled materials!

“It was amazing to me to hear some of the conversations that were happening,” said John. “Many people told me how great it was to see these people in the same room. They were really learning a lot from each other.”

That’s Oklahoma City for you. Silicon Prairie, indeed. 

Life moves fast, and in the Digital Age, business moves even faster. Smart marketers know they need an organized, managed system for keeping collateral ready to use at the click of a button. They need an online company store.

While the concept of this “marketing closet” sounds like a marketer’s dream, often times marketers are afraid of what is involved in building their own. ROBYN Promotions has been building and managing company stores for over 20 years and would like to share 3 critical insights for developing a marketing products management system.

1. Promotional Products: Define Your Core

A quick online search for promotional products provides thousands of items you can put your logo on, but that doesn’t mean you should! When we begin working on a branded company store with a new client, we start by analyzing what has worked for the company in the past to get a feel for their culture. “After doing some research, we are able to suggest other products that might also be effective for them,” says Sara Janzen, a Client Care Specialist at ROBYN.

Your company is unique and you need a selection of products and a branded merchandise store that reflects who you are. Our research team works with you to create items that are distinctive and reflects your brand and message. Over the years, however, we have identified several core categories of products that work well for most companies and we encourage new clients to carry items in these categories that fit their culture and the message they want to communicate. Some of these categories include: writing instruments, drinkware, hats, golf shirts, dress shirts, jackets, padfolios, desktop items and usb drives.

There's more to "defining your core" here!

2. Designing Your Company Store

Over our 20+ years, we have worked with a wide variety of companies, each with their own unique needs and goals for their branded e-store. ROBYN offers companies of all sizes several packages with a wide assortment of options to build a system that best fits their needs. Each company store is built on the same platform, so upgrading from a basic store to a custom store as your needs change can be done without starting from scratch.

ROBYN’s basic store quickly provides an effective tool for you to manage your marketing collateral through a clean, easy-to-navigate interface that is branded with your logo. For companies who require a custom design, additional reporting features, support of multiple brands, customized print solutions, video tutorials and other advanced features, an advanced store can be developed to meet your specific needs.

More discussion about "designing your e-store" here...

3. Unveiling Your New Branded Merchandise Store

Once all the components are in place and your marketing collateral management system has been thoroughly tested, it’s time to invite your audience to try it out. We have found these three steps work extremely well:

• Communication – Tell your audience what you have built and how it is going to help them. Often times, our clients ask ROBYN to manage an email campaign through the store itself to invite users to try the new e-store.

• Incentivize your team – The most effective way to get users to go through an entire transaction on the new site is to give them free company swag or a discount on their first purchase. Whether it’s unique coupon codes, a points system or money in their accounts, ROBYN can manage the entire program for you.

• Ask for feedback – We have found that when employees feel like part of the program, they are more supportive of it. Plus, they often times have great ideas for additional products or features that will make the store more useful.

More tips for launching your branded merch store are just a click away!

Developing a successful system for managing your marketing collateral requires a commitment to seeing it through, planning for the many ways it can serve your audience and an experienced partner who understands your needs and can provide solutions. For more information about the ROBYN Company Store Solution, please contact one of our experts at 877.211.9711.

Smart marketers know that the best way to drive your message home is to make it stick with your target market. And, when your target audience is 5 and under, nothing sticks like a Big Bird sticker!

“The kids are BIG fans of the decals,” said Chase Harvick, Communications Coordinator for OETA, The Oklahoma PBS affiliate. “We’ve been giving them out at some big events this year to raise awareness about the new PBS Learning Media website.” Featuring over 20,000 activities and lesson plans for teachers and home educators, the new site is integrated with other media found on the OETA website.

“We reach over 1.8 million Oklahomans each week through our four channels,” said Chase. “Our goal right now is to make sure parents and educators are aware of this new resource and all the fantastic, kid-friendly programs we have.”

And these shows are not just fun to watch. A recent study found the PBS shows increased student’s test scores by 46%. Word Up, Word Girl!

On April 9th, OETA teamed up with the Oklahoma City Zoo to present Read Across Oklahoma 2013 and on April 16th, over a thousand people joined them for the OETA Day at the Capitol. This week, Chase’s team will be at a home school conference in Tulsa.

“We’re working to get our message out,” says Chase. “It’s hard to beat Curious George as a spokesman!”

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