Leadpile’s Blog

Many people are wondering if buying a home is a good idea right now. A recent article on CCNMoney revealed that RealtyTrac announced that the banks are the most desperate sellers.  Lenders report 197,800 homes were foreclosed in the from Jan 1, 2008 – April 30, 2008.

So is it a good time to buy? Yes! And a  good place to look may be homes that are bank owned.  Banks are trying to get rid of many homes, and they may be willing to take less than what they are worth.  Many people say to look for homes that are at least 90 days old.  Definietly hire a broker to assist you.

Also have the home inspected to make sure the value of the home is truly there.  Consider any maintenance or renovations that would need to be done and deduct that from the asking price.  Hire an expert!

What does this mean for the Real Estate Brokers! More business!! Obviosuly they can get leads for first time home buyers at the lead exchange, and sell homes even in tough times.

There seems to be an increase in the amount of traffic that is coming to a certain type of website.  Recent studies show that coupon websites are dealing with a large increase (sometimes almost double) in the amount of traffic because of people’s need for saving money.  Consumers are frequenting websites that offer coupons to print out, listings of stores and what they all have on sale, and other websites that provide the best deals in your area.

If consumers are going to these types of websites more often now, wouldn’t this be a good place to do some lead generation?  I took a look at some of these types of websites like coupons.com, eversave.com, couponmountain.com and coolsavings.com, and all but one of them had some sort of advertising/affiliate links on them.  These sites are attracting more consumers that might not have previously been surfing the net, like they are now.  

Therefore, should lead generation companies look at maybe generating leads from these sorts of sites?  I would say yes because if these consumers are looking for ways to save money, they might be a good candidate for someone who is interested in things like debt consolidation, debt settlement, a payday loan or other services. Is it wrong to look at this as an opportunity to generate leads?  These money saving sites are a great place to capture that targeted audience that that is obviously looking to save money.  We are all trying come up with ways to generate business, but at the same time help those that TRUELY need it.  I think it is time to go take a look at those sites and see what type of affiliate program they have.

We ALL know those lovely dancing people in the Lower My Bills advertisements. Unique online advertising that promotes consumers to click on their animated banners. Anyone in the mortgage world who has ever bought leads, has probably at some point or another purchased leads from this company. In recent weeks, I have been writing some various posts about different aspects of our economy and how it seems to be affecting different online companies.
Who would have ever thought there would be an affect on such a large company as Lower My Bills.  It appears that it has.
LMB it seems is now getting into remarketing through email campaigns?  They weren’t doing this already? From what I read they were not.  So what could be the reasoning behind something like this? Was there never a need to remarket because the payouts on selling leads multiple times was enough to satisfy them? Has business slowed down so much that they need to remarket their database to generate new online activity (new leads, clicks, better EPL etc)? Maybe the cost for online marketing is too costly for them, and they need to come up with lower cost ways to generate leads?
No matter what the reason is, there seems to be not one industry or company that is not some how affected by what is going on in our economy.
Companies must start thinking outside the box in order to come up with more efficient ways to generate business at a lower cost.  Email marketing seems to be the answer for Lower My Bills, so what are other companies going to do to adjust and stay afloat?
I HOPE THAT DOESN’T MEAN THE DANCING PEOPLE BANNERS ARE GOING TO GO BYE BYE……..

What do you find in a lead exchange?  Do you know if a lead exchange is the right place for you?  Need leads for your team or even for yourself? 

Well, let me tell you!  A lead exchange is a perfect place to fill in all your needs.  Whether you are a big corporation with hundreds of staffs or just a casual starter working from home, a lead exchange is right for you!  See, here is where you can find leads on a real time basis or simply hand select the ones you prefer.  It will assist you in increasing your business. 

We have leads that are full applications when you consider all the information that is captured, as well as basic general contact information that you can feed to your sales force that will bring in more business.  Whether you are a broker, loan officer, realtor, sales person, consultant, or even a financial institution, a lead marketplace is right for you.  

A well known lead exchange such as LeadPile focuses on so many different lead types you would truly be amazed at what we have done and have to offer.  We can easily get integrated, or just send leads in simplistic email format.  We can even start up a new lead types if you demand it!

You can buy as you go.  You can even sell as you go.  Wow, what technology in this day in age has conquered.  A lead exchange works with advertisers and publishers and find the right solution to increase your ROI (return on investment) and helps monitor your traffic to get the best possible out of your traffic.

It decreases the headaches of having to figure out how to generate your own leads.  You can save time and money by simply investing your marketing dollars and receiving consumers needing help immediately! The lead exchange is a true benefit for your company!

While thinking about customer service I was thinking of ways that make customers want to come back to companies that give that Great customer service. There are several ways to accomplish this. What makes them great at what they do to retain those customers? 

•  ANSWER THE PHONE – Just by having someone picking up the phone and saying “Thanks you for calling” is a great way to make the customer feel welcome and happy that they called your business.  
• DON’T MAKE PROMISES UNLESS YOU WILL KEEP THEM – Reliability is important and keeping promises is even more important. Don’t just plan on keeping a promise, DO it. Don’t tell them you will call them on one day then forget to call them for another 2 days. If you keep your promise or don’t remain reliable, the customer will remember. 
• LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMER – Don’t you hate it when you have told something to someone and realize that they have not heard anything that you just said? Think about your customers and how they feel. It is just as frustrating for them as it would be for you if you were treated that way. Let them talk and make appropriate responses, but pay attention to what they are saying. Take notes if you have to. Then suggest a resolution if necessary. 
• DEAL WITH COMPLAINTS – Smile through it. This may be when you feel like throwing up your hands and arguing with your customer, but that will only turn them away. Let them know you are going to look into what they are complaining about and that you will do your best to resolve this. However, don’t ever let them know that you are frustrated at them. This can easily turn into BAD customer service. 
• BE HELPFUL (Even if there is no immediate profit in it) – Even the simplest thing can be something like opening a door, answering a simple question, saying ma’am or sir, or lending a helping hand. You never know when someone will tell another person just how nice you were. 
• TRAIN YOUR STAFF (if you have any) TO BE ALWAYS HELPFUL, COURTEOUS, AND KNOWLEDGEABLE – Either hire someone or do it yourself. Give your staff enough information and empowerment to make a decision.  You don’t always want to have your employees having to come running to you to check on if they can do something or not. It can be annoying to have the salesman in front of you who keeps running off, “I have to go check with my manager, and I will be right back.” 
• TAKE THE EXTRA STEP – Ever walk in to a store and ask where something is and someone says “it’s over there” and points in an area “over there”? How annoying is that? Ever walk into a store and ask someone where something is and someone says “its right over here, I’ll show you.” Which experience do you think will be a more positive experience to tell others about?
• THROW IN SOMETHING EXTRA – Whether it is extra information on how to use something, or even a coupon for a discount. People like to receive extra things. Give them something that the customer will remember you for, and keep them coming back. 

If you are consistent in the way that you think and use your customer service skills, you can become Great in whatever your business is doing, retain current customers, and create new customer service relationships. 

According to Interactive Advertising Bureau, the spending for advertising is up for the first quarter of 2008. This is kind of ironic considering everything that our nation is going through with the economy. It appears that advertisers are backing down on other forms of advertising, but increasing their web advertising. Why is that? Is it because they can get immediate feedback from consumers because of reports that track people clicking on their ads, versus other forms of advertising you do not have that immediate feedback from consumers? In reality, advertising spending were actually down compared to the 4th quarter of 2007, however this is because of the holidays and most retail and online companies increase advertising spending during that period. As we all already know, the internet is the wave of the future where consumers will be spending a lot of time. Corporate America realizes this and they are changing what they are doing to get YOU to buy their product. Let’s see if these spending dollars continue to rise for the 2nd quarter of 2008.

Where is most of the money spent on internet advertising? Search advertising (Google, Yahoo and MSN)is where a large volume of dollars are spent followed by display ads (IE- banners), classified advertising (IE- Craig’s list), lead generation (IE- Leadpile), rich media (IE- youtube), and lastly email marketing.

So, has the slumping economy affected internet advertising also? It appears it did not, but the bottom line is: ……………………………. did the internet advertising result in more sales?

In order to secure your website you need a site that uses an HTTPS URL to ensure that your important information such as routing numbers, or SSN are not stolen by third parties between the sender and the receiver.  This is an important part of the lead marketplace to ensure that sites are secured when it comes to clients filling out a request that requires them to put their personal information such as Day of Birth/Driver license number just to name a few.  

What does HTTP mean? It is define as Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It is the language that all online browsers use to communicate when speaking to the web server.  In order to secure this HTTP you need a SSL (secure sockets Layer) protocol that provides secure communication that talks to each other using HTTP.  

This will create an HTTPS where two programs can correspond with one another to identify and agree on a source of encryption using SSL certified.  An SSL certificate can be signed by an authority that allows the web browser to verify identity of a secure site before sending sensitive and private information that if in wrong hands can cause harm to the consumer.  You can purchase SSL certificates from certified authorities such as VeriSign, GoDaddy or McAfee, and others online which verify the webmaster identity to a degree.

With so much identity theft a marketplace should take pride in securing sites to ensure that the consumer has a great experience on the site and refer more of their associates or companions over to your site.  Ensuring that their information is safe is a good way to establish better relationships with your clients. What better way than word of mouth to have serious clients back to your sites!

According to Matthew Benson of the Arizona Republic, The leaders of an initiative that was attempting to shut down Arizona’s payday-loan industry have recently withdrawn their proposal. They said they failed to collect enough signatures to make the state’s November ballot. Benson says the group, Stop Payday Loans, indicates that they will instead focus their attention on defeating an initiative led by the payday-loan industry that would include some consumer-interest reforms but also allow the industry and its more than 600 branches to operate in perpetuity in Arizona.  A provision in state law enabling the payday-loan industry is scheduled to end in 2010, barring an extension.

The Arizona players should take a cue from the recent Ohio initiatives, and come up with an excellent compromise on the issue to ensure fair lending in Arizona.

Just in one week after the Offers and MicroClick ads were released, the volume of Payday/Cash Advance Leads, have exploded in our Lead Marketplace/Lead Exchange. The Buyers we currently have are very excited about the new developments, and as a result of our continuing effort to bring valuable leads in the lead-gen space, we’ve seen a tremendous increase in quality and volume.

Thanks to our publishers and their amazing creativity, our Offers (banners and text ads), together with the MicroClick Ads, are placed on spots that we never thought of, starting with confirmation pages, exit traffic or direct traffic to pages that have an amazing volume of traffic. Two of the things that were very attractive to our publishers, was the fact that our MicroClick ads would load really fast and that our Microsites are on secured sites (HTTPS). The secured sites alone has increased the CVR (conversion rate) with almost 14%.

Faster, better and more alternatives is the key to succeed in an industry where everything changes continuously.

Any suggestions are welcomed, as our commitment is to make the Payday Leads vertical a stronger and better vertical for every everyone involved in Leadpile’s Lead Marketplace/Lead Exchange.

Payday lenders in Arizona should be open for business until at least 2010. Yesterday, a group called Stop Payday Loans withdrew their proposal to shut down Arizona’s payday-loan-industry. They needed at least 153,000 signatures to get on the November ballot, and they were only able to collect 30,000 signatures. The group now says they will focus on reform rather than on repeal. Things could get interesting as we approach for 2010, but for now let’s hope ethical, helpful, non-predatory lending will continue.

Social media is an area of marketing that is very popular.  Some critics say how can you do effective marketing with social media, and then you hear others say if you are not in the social media arena, you better get into it!
Many surveys that I read spoke about the effectiveness of social media sites and a common point was raised in a lot of these surveys:  consumers buy things that their peers/friends/contacts in these social networking sites also buy.  The most successful companies are using the networking sites, but ALSO creating interactive advertising that involves the people on the sites.  Conducting surveys, questionairs and other brief interactive/conversational marketing tactics.  Not only does this type of marketing get the feedback of the people, it allows companies to get some potential word of mouth advertising going.  This could be an ideal place where a company rolls out new products and gets the potential momentum for that product, even before it hits the shelves.  
Social networking sites are part of the social media craze.  Other examples of social media are blogs (like this one), social news sites and sites like youtube.  All these sites have something in common- a common place for people to express their thoughts and opinions, yet also read what others are talking about too.  How can you go wrong reading some unbiased feedback about a particular subject that you are interested in?  The old way of marketing was companies had their websites and you had to take their word everything they said on the website was actually correct.
I would say social media is something that could make or break companies.  Therefore, treating customers with the utmost respect is ideal, because if you don’t- you could be all over the next blog entries.  
On a final note, I have had a lot of conversations with prospective clients that did their homework before joining the Leadpile marketplace.  This “homework” is them visiting various social media sites and reading positive posts about the marketplace.  So THANK YOU social media!

Are you ready to treat the internet the same way you treat your cell phone? It may be on the horizon… Time Warner believes that the more network capacity someone uses, the more they should pay. In Beamont, TX they are conducting a test with new subscribers selecting how many gigabytes they will use each month. If they go over their cap, they are being charged $1 per gigabyte. For people that only send email and read news on the internet, this will have little or no impact. How about those users that are now watching television shows and movies on the internet? This could have a huge impact on them as well as the content providers. This test will be watched closely, because the ramifications could be huge. Some may remember the early AOL days when they charged for usage. The internet really took off when unlimited access plans became the norm. Will people be willing to pay for what they use, or will internet service providers need to figure out a better way to manage their networks and their finances?