“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.”  -author unknown

You never stop learning. Even when you think you’ve mastered something, there will always be a new detail or technique that will surface. The most frequently updated products and tools all have one thing in common: the internet. All things online update at a blinding speed. It almost feels as though you are in a classroom with a rotating door; you never leave because you’re never done learning. 

RPS has stepped up to the plate and enrolled in the school of Google Engage, a training program that involves a series of up-to-date seminars and courses whose sole purpose is to make you as successful as possible with Google AdWords, Google’s online advertisement program. Google Engage is a stepping stone in the process of becoming Google Certified. In short, we aim to become Google wizards, and Google Engage is helping us get there.

So what does our continued education mean for you? We’re glad you asked.

1. $100 Google AdWords voucher: No, this isn’t a scam. Upon completion of Google Engage “basic training”, we were given access to a number of $100 Google AdWords vouchers that we can use with new client AdWords campaigns that we set up and manage. Basically, you get to test-drive AdWords on Google’s dime. Not a bad deal!
2. Messages received (the way you need them to be received!): AdWords connects you to consumers at any level of the consumer behavior cycle: awareness, consideration, trial, repurchase/loyalty. That means you need to have ads that are tailored specifically to the message you’re wanting to convey. With the training RPS is receiving, you will have the most current AdWords tactics applied to your AdWords campaigns, helping you get the most out of your AdWords investment.
3. Advertising you can afford: There is no minimum cost to Google AdWords. Companies of any size or industry can benefit from AdWords. Whether you have an ad budget of $100 a month or $10,000, you can have a successful AdWords campaign. All it takes is strategy and constant monitoring of results. RPS is equipped with the staff and training to maintain a watchful eye on our clients’ AdWords campaigns, ensuring that they get the most out of their AdWords dollars.

Need some more convincing? We’d love to sit down with you and talk Google. We love getting people as excited as we are about the latest and greatest tools available to them. Contact us today for more information on Google AdWords, and how we can get you started!

RPS on the Streets is your quick guide for the latest and greatest tools and tricks that will keep you running at optimum speed. Now, we aren’t talking about fancy motor oil, we’re talking about a news feed that tailored specifically to what you want to read, an easy way to make sure you stick to that infamous “lose weight” New Years resolution, and a way to make sure you never lose a bill again.

Trapit

TiVo was the remedy for annoying TV commercials, and Trapit is the remedy for news stories you really don’t care about. Rather than digging through all of the blogs, news sites and RSS feeds that flood you with stories about any and all topics, Trapit will deliver a tailored, streamlined collection of stories that are worthy of your precious time.

Signing up for Trapit is super simple. Create an account through your Facebook or Twitter account, or using an email address. (if you prefer not to have your Trapit account linked with your social media account(s)) After you create your account, Trapit will show you a list of pre-made feeds that are most popular among users, or you can create your own custom feeds. Just search for a keyword, phrase or specific URL, and Trapit will pull stories related to your search criteria. If you want to turn your search into a permanent feed, simply click “Trap it!” It’s that simple.

Happy trapping!

MyFitnessPal

Arguably the most popular New Years resolution is the vow to get in shape. Sadly, this is also (usually) the first resolution to go out the window. Most blame their resolution failure on not enough time to go to the gym or to make healthier meals. Well, we have an app for you (of course!) that will help you stay the course of weight loss this year.

MyFitnessPal is a mobile app that helps you keep track of every calorie you consume in a day, and every minute of physical activity. It logs the information in daily “journals”, and counts all the data you enter towards a goal that you set for yourself when you create your account. (You can also set up new goals at a later time) MyFitnessPal has a database of over 1 million foods, so entering caloric information shouldn’t be a problem. (You might also learn just how many calories that morning pack of Pop Tart is earning you.)

The best part about MyFitnessPal? They have an app for just about every mobile platform. That’s right, no excuses! So download the app today, set your goal(s), and get on your way to a healthier you this year.

Manilla

Who is a fan of late fees? Who enjoys keeping track of numerous usernames and passwords for all their online accounts? Who gets a thrill from gazing at a towering stack of paper bill statements every month? If you answered “Me!” to any of those questions, this product is not for you. If, however, you groaned more and more with each question above, this product might be your salvation.

Manilla is basically an online filing cabinet. It’s a secure compilation of all of your online accounts for all bills, subscriptions and loyalty programs. In their words, it will take you 90 seconds to get going on Manilla. Create an account, pick the companies you have accounts with (even guys like Groupon!), enter in your login information for each, and you’re done. Manilla will send you emails or texts when a bill due date is nearing or when an online deal is about to expire. You can even view past billing statements for certain companies.

And the best part is…you only need to remember ONE username and password. No, you’re not dreaming. Go forth and manage your bills in peace. You can thank us later.

At Rock, Paper, Scissors, we love to give back to our community. One of the organizations we’re heavily involved with is Barefoot in the Park Fine Arts Festival, which takes place on the Duluth Town Green. The festival is celebrating its eighth year this May, so don’t miss it!

This year the event takes place on May 4-6, and will feature a Gala, Artist Market with regionally recognized talent, a Children’s Art Park and art workshops, performances, entertainment, and a silent auction, which helps fund “Arts for Education”, the Barefoot Arts Scholarship Program. For more information, visit www.barefootinthepark.org.

In the meantime, check out the video we shot during last year’s Barefoot in the Park to see just what the festival is all about, and hear from some of its leaders just what the festival means to the Gwinnett County art community.

Hold on there just a minute, this is January, not December. The season of giving is behind us, right? Not at all. January is a great time to think about how you want to share your resources and treasures in the coming year. Charitable sponsorships should be part of your yearly business plan. By planning ahead, you not only have the time to make a thoughtful selection but you also make sure that you get the most mileage possible from the PR and sponsorship opportunities.

We helped Discovery Point partner with Q100, McDonald’s and The Salvation Army in Coats 4 Kids in December. This past December the Discovery Point team collected 1,047 coats that will be distributed by The Salvation Army. Rock, Paper, Scissors even contributed by developing a logo for the Coats 4 Kids program that Q100 will use to brand this charitable drive every year. Discovery Point is looking forward to this being the first of many years that they will be partnering with The Salvation Army to collect new and slightly used children’s coats for the less fortunate.

Events like these are not uncommon in our mix of recommendations to customers who understand the great value and satisfaction of sharing with the community. We also partnered with the Gwinnett Braves, crafting a program that donated baseball tickets to the families of service men, The Salvation Army , Rainbow Village and others non-profits as guests of Discovery Point. We are planning on working with Q100 on programs with Children’s Healthcare and Atlanta Botanical Gardens in the future.

At Rock, Paper, Scissors we not only help our clients in their charitable endeavors, we also have long history of our own charitable projects. One of our biggest contributions over the last decade + was starting the Aurora Theatre, one of Metro Atlanta’s most outstanding professional theatres.

In 2012, RPS will once again be very involved with the 8th Annual Barefoot in the Park Fine Arts Festival. Last year we raised  $10,000 for scholarships that were awarded to students at Georgia Gwinnett College, The Hudgens Arts Center, The Shapiro Foundation, Aurora Theatre, and Gwinnett Ballet Company.

Take time this month to look for some opportunities to share your talents or your treasure with your favorite charitable organization. It’s a great way to start off the year. Happy New Year!

RPS on the Streets is your quick guide for the latest and greatest tools and tricks that will keep you running at optimum speed. Now, we aren’t talking about fancy motor oil, we’re talking about websites that help you find that perfect gift for that “difficult to buy for” person on your list, an easy way to get everyone’s plans for the holidays together, and a way to never forget any of the cool things you stumble across on the web.

Wantful

The older a person gets, the harder they seem to be to gift. Children are easy: spend an hour with them in the toy aisle, and they will gesture to every item they’d like to see under the Christmas tree. (left there by Santa, of course) Older children and adults, however, can take the “happy” out of “Happy Holidays” faster than an open parking spot at the mall fills up this time of year, when it comes to making sure their spaces under the tree are filled, too. Well, we’ve discovered a service that just might make your festive foray into gifting a little more bearable.

Wantful is a service that takes cues from a person’s likes and dislikes, quirks and qualities, and creates a list of items that it thinks that person will enjoy. The process is simple. To begin, you fill out a questionnaire about the person you’re trying to find a gift for. Using the results of the questionnaire, Wantful will generate a list of items that you then choose up to 16 of. Your selections are then put into a book that will be mailed to the gift recipient. That person can then choose which gift they would really like, and it will be mailed to them. Almost like a personalized Sears catalog that you KNOW you’re going to get something out of. Happy holidays, indeed.

Hatch

Trying to get everyone together for the holidays? More often than not, that can feel a lot like trying to herd kittens, especially when you have family members that aren’t local. Well, instead of creating the world’s longest email daisy-chain, racking up the overtime on your cell phone minutes, or relying on other family members to relay “get together news”, why not try something a little more fool-proof?

Hatch allows you to “hatch a plan” about any event you could think of. All you need to do is include details (location, time, date, etc.), then send out the plan to those you wish to invite, using their email address or cell phone number. Hatch is available as an app, but the beauty of it is, you can interact with invitees, even if they don’t have the app. So maybe NOW everyone will make it to Grandma’s house.

Gimmebar

Have you ever been watching a video on YouTube, laughed your pants off at it, closed out of it, then struggled to recall it a few days later when trying desperately to reenact it for friends? Well, if you had been using Gimmebar, that video could have been playing for your friends again in seconds, instead of subjecting your friends to a full five minutes of you impersonating a piano-playing cat.

Gimmebar is a lot like Pinterest on steroids. For those not familiar with Pinterest, it’s a place for storing images from all over the web in specialized boards for other users to view, and to help you organize great ideas, fantastic recipes, or funny sayings from all over the web, just by “pinning” a picture that corresponds with it. Gimmebar takes this “Internet organization” a few steps further. Instead of only saving a picture, you can now snag videos, lines of text, even screenshots of an entire webpage, and sort them into a public or private gallery, all from the Gimmebar taskbar. In these galleries, you can further organize your content into lists like “What I want for Christmas” or “Ideas for our new marketing strategy for 2012″.

So, give Gimmebar a spin. We dare you not to get addicted.

Have any cool online services or apps that you just can’t live without? Share it with us in a comment below. Have a Merry Christmas!

I am proud to say that I had 3 Cabbage Patch Kids when I was a little girl and I know where they are to this day! I even found one of the birth certificates this past summer. And growing up in Georgia, I had the privilege of visiting Babyland General on many occasions. Any others out there who can relate?

If you do not know what I am talking about, you are either too young or had your head buried in the sand in the 80s and you should definitely read more!

So often you don’t give your childhood brands a second thought until someone starts the “do you remember when” game or they bring out embarrassing pictures from your past. Then you start wondering what happened to them. Usually they just faded into the mist, but every once in a while a brand endures.

I had not even thought about Cabbage Patch Kids since I was 10 or 12, but all  memories came flooding back when I was invited out to Cleveland, Georgia to talk about the Cabbage Patch Kids website. They became the dream client I never knew I always wanted. And I will tell you, this is a brand that has not faded into the mist, they are strong and growing.

We started to work with Cabbage Patch Kids this past spring to begin updating their website. The site and shopping cart were already very active when we started, so part of our challenge has been to come up with a strategy to phase in updates without disrupting current traffic and not to offend loyal website visitors.

The first phase included internal maintenance and the start of the re-branding process. When you check out the current Cabbage Patch Kids’ website, you will see some of our handy work. We have created a new design and even incorporated a little animation. Our goal was to bring some of the magic of Babyland General to the website. If you don’t know, these are not dolls, they are babies that come from Mother Cabbage. If you happen to find yourself in the North Georgia mountains, you need to stop by Babyland General to fully grasp the Cabbage Patch Kids experience, and then you will understand what I mean.

In addition to updating the look of the website, we have also expanded the back-end interface so that Cabbage Patch Kids can maintain all of their own content and images on the website. After the holiday season we will start to upgrade the shopping cart to make it more user-friendly, and we are even working on installing cameras at Babyland General so that they can do live broadcasts of the births on the website. Don’t worry, we will let you know when this is up and running so that you can experience this for yourself – you are going to want to take all of your kids, neighbors, nieces and nephews under four feet tall here, I guarantee.

Check out the Cabbage Patch Kids website for yourself or you can always call me for a guided tour.

~ Amanda, devoted Cabbage Patch Kids kid

As you may know, we now offer video production services at RPS. This is an exciting addition to an already amazing pool of services and talent. That being said, we would like to take a few minutes to explain why you NEED to add video to your current marketing strategies.

Let’s look at a marketing strategy you are familiar with: The  concept  for a direct response ad is simple yet powerful. A bold headline attracts you to read a more focused sub-headline, which then leads your eye to the sales  pitch below. The longer the reader stays with the ad, the better chance you have for a conversion.

A web site video can do all that and more. Using online videos allows you to deliver your headline with the appropriate tone. You have an opportunity to express enthusiasm, caring, or urgency for example, to add weight to your message. Your sub-headline and information about your product and services can be delivered to your audience along with demonstrations, graphic or samples. Your testimonials now carry the heartfelt emotion behind them by having actual customers shoot out your praise. All this is impossible to deliver in printed text on a web page in the time it takes to view a video. So adding video is pretty simple: More impact. Quicker reflex time to grab their attention. Increased conversions.

Some Statistics Please!

It’s a proven fact videos work. Many online lead generation companies have released statistics and reports detailing how adding product or testimonial videos can increase conversion rates, customer interaction, and overall customer ROI.

• In early 2010, TriMark added a click-to-play customer testimonials video to all Window World PPC landing pages. Within a month, he began to see lead conversion increases of 20% from those specific sites.

• EyeView Digital has reported conversion rate increases of over 80% when video additions were included in landing page optimizations.

• Andrew Angus from Switch Web Video boasts this impressive statement, “If you have a video on a webpage you are much much more likely to convert that visitor to a lead as compared to a normal web page. I have seen figures that show video landing pages convert 2 to 6 times better than a normal webpage.”

• Andrew Angus also went on to discuss the importance of video testimonials to conversion rates, “The page with testimonials on it beat the competition by 158%! That blew me out of the water and is a huge difference for the business.”

• Chris Savage of Wistia.com also believes in the power of video additions to landing pages. He was recently quoted as saying, “We consistently get 3-4x better conversion ratios when we have videos on a page. Visitors convert in less time and there tend to be more opportunities.”

The experts are unanimous, adding videos to your clients’ websites and landing pages WILL INCREASE CONVERSION RATES in 99% of all cases.
So, you’re thinking, “That’s great, but why should I invest in video for my business?” Here are the top five reasons why:

1. People like to watch videos: Most people would rather watch a video than have to read. That is the truth and if your company, products, or service require any sort of explanation take the time and put it in a video because your audience will respond with much greater force.
2. Decrease your bounce rate: Depending on the type of video you choose and how long it is, you hold the visitor on your website  for the duration of the video. When the content is useful, it leads to the customers  sticking around to find more information or hitting the “Contact Us” button.
3. Increases branding and credibility: When a business integrates web video it launches you into a whole new category in the perception of your audience. You begin to  project  a higher level of professionalism to your customers.
4. Testimonials: When people can hear your voice and see your face, they are much more likely to do business with you since it builds a feeling of trust. A testimonial reassures customers about your positive qualities and the products/services you offer.
5. Get Ranked: By adding your video to services such as YouTube and Vimeo people are more likely to come across your business, therefore attracting additional traffic to your site.

Call us and find out more. We would love to take some time and discuss what options you have and how we can help you use the power of video to amp up your web site.

Jessica Vittorio

jessica@123shoot.com

678-327-4756

178 E. Crogan St. Suite 220

Lawrenceville, Georgia 30046

Now, Google+ has decided to include a Business option, much like Facebook Pages for businesses. We decided to measure this new business social media tool against the obvious competitor, Facebook, and came up with a few pros and cons. Consider our lists below before signing your business up for Google+.

Pros of Google+ for businesses:

• Search results: Google+ is (obviously) better suited for SEO impact. Content posted on a Google+ page, as well as “recommended” through Google+ are an instant shoe-in for search engines results on Google. This is especially true if the person searching also has a Google+ account.
• Communication: Google Hangout would be an ideal way to have conference calls with staff, or even clients, from literally anywhere. You can do a Hangout session with a specific Circle, so your business could create a Circle for Staff, as well as temporarily create a Circle for a certain client that they want to have a conference call with.
• Google+ button: You can place a Google+ button on your website, to 1) encourage visitors to join you on Google+, and 2) to “recommend” your content on Google.

Cons of Google+ for businesses:

• Not as widespread as Facebook: Google+ is still technically a “newbie” to the social media world, so not as many of your clients will be on it. In time, this will probably change, but for now, this shouldn’t be considered a reliable way to connect with clients.
• Not as many options as Facebook: There are many updates on the horizon for Google+, like a shopping cart capability for Business Google+ pages, but for now, the profile on Google+ is very basic. Facebook offers you much more customization.

RPS on the Streets is your quick guide for the latest and greatest tools and tricks that will keep you running at optimum speed. Now, we aren’t talking about fancy motor oil, we’re talking about organizational websites that help you find truly the best piece of pizza in your neighborhood, and about a million other things that you never knew you needed. In this edition we highlight BiteHunter, ScoreBig and Pzizz.

Have you ever had a hankering for a gooey, stringy, purely awesome piece of cheese pizza, but are in a totally foreign place, like Boise, ID? You and your stomach need not fear, BiteHunter is here! The creators of BiteHunter combined the power of great food and amazing deals to bring you a tasty search engine that will leave you with a full stomach and wallet.

The site is exceptionally easy to use. You enter what you’re craving and where you are currently located, and BiteHunter will pull up all the local deals available in your immediate area. You can purchase deals right from your search results.

Another nifty feature is the ability to view search results in a map overlay, making it super simple to see where your next meal might come from. Oh, and one more neat feature: they have an app. iPhone users, rejoice!

In this current economy, we’ve managed to convince ourselves that a Red Box movie and bag of microwave popcorn is a legitimate “date night”. But we know you long for the date nights of old, where you and your better half were cheering on your favorite sports team, or head-banging in unison to that epic 80′s power ballad. Send your Red Box movie back! We’ve got a remedy for your entertainment itch: ScoreBig.

Think of this as the Priceline of the entertainment ticketing world. First, you search for an upcoming event that you want to attend. Then, choose from the seats available (spring for front row, you can afford it now!). Finally, enter a price that you are willing to pay for the tickets, and then wait to see if your bid is accepted. Don’t fret if your bid if not accepted, ScoreBig might offer you a counter offer, or you can just pick a different seat and go from there.

Go ahead and give it a try – you know you want to see Bon Jovi for the 17th time in your life.

This one might not seem like it has any relevance to your job, but keep read to see how vital this product might be. Between the stress of your job and trying to get the kids back in the swing of school schedules, we’re 100% sure that your sleep has been affected. No amount of coffee can erase those glaring dark circles beneath your eyes. We have one remedy option that might help stifle those perpetual yawns. (And yes, we know it has a weird name, but its affects will make up for that.) Pzizz is a “unique set of audio tracks” that will help you get quality sleep at night or during the day (if you’re lucky enough to have an opportunity to nap). There are also tracks available that will give you an energy boost in place of that 5th cup of coffee. You have a variety of download options for tracks. You can go with the traditional mp3 tracks, or plug your headphones into your Android phone and listen your way to a better day at the office.

Let us know if you see an improvement to your sleep, and if you have any track suggestions. Sweet dreams!