In October of 2011 a class-action lawsuit against Yelp claiming that they were removing negative reviews in exchange for “advertising” was dismissed with prejudice (meaning they cannot be sued again for the same reason). It’s now two months from 2013 and already it seems the complaints of extortion are not going away; instead they appear to be growing more frequent in numbers as awareness has risen that something fishy could be going on at Yelp.

So far, courts have allowed Yelp to…

Most of the articles I write are directed toward dealership senior managers or toward managers within specific departments. My content today is directed at all dealership department managers…or, rather, to those department managers who have a major sales responsibility. And guess what? Once again I’m going to talk about what’s not happening that should be happening in your department.

I am surprised by how few dealership departments have developed…

There are a million ways to market your business thanks to the internet and it's pretty hard to sort through all of the advertising messages and find the right medium for your business.

Often times, we use the 'trial and error' method to figure out what type of advertising is really going to be beneficial but let's face it, years of trial and error means a ton of money being spent on things that don't work and it begins to feel like just when we find our perfect…

Free webinar on October 30^th, 2012, at 2 p.m. teaches dealers best practices for compliant marketing

Daytona Beach, FL–October 23, 2012 – DMEautomotive (DMEa), the science-inspired, results-based automotive marketing leader, announces the fourth in a series of webinars the company is hosting with Automotive News. This webinar addresses the critical issues of compliance, including…

For more information contact:

Adriana DiFranco

3 Birds Marketing

(919) 627-8784

adriana.difranco@3birdsmarketing.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

3 Birds’ Own Chad Smith Wins Triangle CIO of the Year Award

Smith Recognized As A Leading CIO in Innovation &…

Google has been taking a lot of heat lately for some alleged shady business practices. We told you last week about the FTC's plan to file an anti-trust case against them, now it seems the non-profit organization SEMPO is trying to get their licks in as…

If you put 50 salespeople in a room, we could go on for hours sharing stories of the worst customers we’ve ever encountered. These stories range from the cheapskate multi-millionaire, you know, the guy who owns half the town, yet blew out because he had to pay the Doc Fee, to the customer who brought his 3rd cousin-twice removed…

• Become a TO (Turnover) Master
• Send in a manager/co-worker for help, even if it requires
  
  you to give up a percentage of your commission. It's worth it!
• On Service Drives, there is a 50% closing ratio from
  
  turned over sales.…

DMEautomotive survey reveals auto service customers open to variety of communications platforms; BUT majority of younger demo want contact through ALL platforms

Key Findings:

• Over a third of consumers are open to receiving communications from their automotive service providers via each platform
• Eighty-nine percent of those under 35 welcome contact via email; 85% via mail; 64% via…

You have a loyal group of followers right? They love the content you email out or blog about and share it religiously with their friends. Problem is, that loyal group of followers is  pretty darn small. So how do you get your word out there? Recruit…

For more information contact:

Adriana DiFranco

3 Birds Marketing

(919) 627-8784

adriana.difranco@3birdsmarketing.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OneCommand Partners With 3 Birds Marketing

To Power Its Newsletter Connect™…

When the topic of SEO comes up, many people envision HTML code and meta tag adjustments. They think of keyword stuffing. They consider the bounds set by the OEM of what they can and cannot do with their websites and how far they can push the boundaries to extend their market reach.

They don't usually imagine finding…

One evolutionary reason for magical thinking is just our tendency to see patterns in the world and to read meaning into them.  We’re so good at it that we often read meaning into patterns that really isn’t’ there.  So we see faces in the clouds or we hear messages in records played backwards.  We tend to see connections between our thoughts and things outside in the world and see correlation and even causation there.  So for instance, if you think…

Social media is a visual experience. Sure, there are great links. There are insightful comments. There are cool videos. All of these are important, but for the most engagement, photos rule.

The video below is a short portion of our webinar titled, "…

" describes "cases in which people act as if they erroneously believe that their action influences the outcome, even though they do not really hold that belief"

Did the best Salesman in the World use 'Magical Thinking' ?

Sold more retail "big ticket" items…

Welcome to Part 2 of what is a major real live hands on case study.  Last week I wrote Part 1.  For those of you that missed it, click here to catch up on what you may have missed.

We ended last week with starting to get more social media plans installed.  We also started a picture and video policy.  However, The major thing was…

I was amazed to learn that, during the research phase, customers spend 17 to 19 hours, on the internet, before visiting a dealership.  Much of that involves vehicle comparisons but anyone is naive if they don't think that price is a chief consideration.  A recent Cobalt study stated that the average consumer visited eight dealership websites.  These customers tend to be at the bottom of the sales funnel.  At this point, they should have narrowed it down to a…