Leadpile’s Blog

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks and express gratitude. The LeadPile team would like to express our appreciation for your business! In combination of saying thank you, we thought we would share some helpful ideas on increasing your sales during this holiday season:

- Send Thanksgiving cards to your customers, everyone likes to hear thank you!
- Send out an email blast to your clients offering discounted services. This keeps your name in front of your customers and potentially brings them back for more services.
- Get involved with your community and do local sponsorships, to get your name in front of more people. Now is the time to share and people appreciate companies that help the community.
- Look at utilizing social networking as a source for advertising and building relationships, because families and friends stay well connected over the holidays.
- Emphasize family in your communications with your customers.

These are all ideas that might help you jump start your sales during this holiday season.

LeadPile wishes you a warm and happy holiday.

Texting, emailing, posting on social networks has all been made so much easier and more accessible with the use of Smartphones. Smartphones have made it possible to keep in constant contact without actually having to pick up the phone and speaking to anyone.
According to webpronews.com, there have been increases in people using Smartphone technology to search for local products and services. A recent study showed a large volume of consumers searching in their local areas for movies, restaurants, bars and a smaller volume of people searching for physical items that need to be shipped. Also shown by studies on Smartphone use is it was shown that using mobile devices for viewing or sending video has increased as well as watching or purchasing TV programs and music videos.
Being without your Smartphone can immediately make you feel like you’re lost. Loosing the gateway to instant Internet, email and social media can not only effect your social life, but in today’s world is something than many of us rely on for business as well! Leadpile appreciates the Smartphones, and what it helps us as a company accomplish when everyone is not in front of a computer. What will they come up with next????

Many of you may be thinking that I am crazy saying that there are benefits to the H1N1 virus. Getting the flu may not be fun, but if you are are in the business of household personal care items, you could not be happier. Brands such as Johnson & Johnson have been seeing a large increase in sales on many of their germ killing products. Purell hand sanitizer, Clorox, and cold medicine are just a few of their germ products that people are reaching to. Just looking around the office I can see all three of the above products with people using them constantly. With that being said, it comes to no surprise that in October along with Johnson & Johnson saw at 10.7% sales increase. That was the larger increase among all companies in this market.
People are going to do whatever it takes to not get sick, if that means buying a bottle of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes a week, they are going to do it (at least until the H1N1 virus subsides). If you are a marketing there is no reason why you should not be taking full advantage of this. Especially since we are still in a “recession”, having the biggest sale increase for that market is amazing. For all you green enthusiast who do not want to get sick and do not want to hurt the environment, there is a whole line of environmental friendly disinfectant products. Whatever the case may be, it definitely pays to work with what is out there and target what people are buzzing about.

95 percent of college students between the age of 18-24 use some form of social networking. That is defiantly not a surprising statistic. What is more surprising is that the students who are involved in using social networking tools, which includes texting and instant messaging, are more apt to learn. This is because many of the students are using the different social networking tools to network with their teachers/classmates for academic help. It makes for a quick and easy way to get the answers or information that a student needs. This could help increase the performance of the students because they have all their resources right at their fingertips.
I know when I was in college a few years ago, I found texting and social networking tools such as Facebook, to be a huge help. Not only with talking to my teachers on chat, but talking to other students as well. It was a great way to get informed on a class that I may have missed, so that I did not fall behind. It was also extremely helpful for online classes because you can get into chats and discuss as a group what is going on in the class and hear different perceptions on a single topic.
Online classes and community college is also a great way to advance yourself. Everyday LeadPile matches people who are interested in advancing their degree with the right college program. By taking online classes and using some forms of social media, being involved in your studies may be much more beneficial than you may have thought.

FDIC has rolled out some new programs for consumers. Some selected banks feel that low to moderate income consumers don’t have enough options. Therefore, some banks that are participating in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp programs are offering some “special” types of loans to consumers. These loans are for those that don’t necessarily have good credit (because their credit is not pulled) and are not able to get a standard type of short term loan. Wallstreet Journal Online is reporting this great news for some consumers that are not able to get quick cash and are considered “under-banked”.
Some statements that some might question are comments such as, “Fees and interest paid to payday lenders and banks for overdraft protection contribute to a larger problem for low-income individuals–those types of loans don’t help build credit scores.” Are even some banks now trying to come up with programs that compete with the payday loan, and are they really trying to find some alternative options for consumers? I guess we will never know, but the one great thing is we are seeing some alternatives being offered to our nation’s consumers that need short term cash. This is exciting for Leadpile to see, and hopes all other banks will follow.

The federal reserve has officially implemented new rules that governs the overdraft fees our nation’s banks can charge. Thursday, a ruling was imposed to make it harder for banks to add overdraft fees to customer’s accounts. Banks will now be required to have a consumer opt in for overdraft protection programs, therefore if you do not opt in for this service you will not have a transaction processed if the funds are not available. Many consumers depend on the fact that their bank will let a charge be processed on their debit card, with the assumption that they will just get charged a fee for that. Well starting in July 2010, that will not be happening. Banks will have to say bye bye to the 25 billion dollars a year in fees they collect on these sorts of transactions. No more spending money you don’t have people…. Let’s see where the banks try and make up for this cash cow loss.

In years past YouTube tried to roll out in-stream ads (in 1997), however the acceptance of it did not go to well with viewers. Time has past and there are other sites that have incorporates such ads, so YouTube is now looking at taking another stab at it. It makes sense because YouTube is utilized by so many people in so many ways, that incorporating some sort of ads had to become part the of “YouTube Revolution”. The good thing about what YouTube is doing, is that they are creating these ads that are actually able to be skipped. However, what they are finding is that if you have a short 15 second ad, more people are not “skipping” over the ad. This is great news for the advertiser trying to get their ads played. Maybe the future of high priced Super Bowl ads will continue on from our televisions to our computers?
Leadpile has incorporated YouTube into our marketing efforts to help get our name out there, and we can certainly see a potential with bringing in ads to these videos. YouTube has to learn to make money, so what other options do they have but to look at cashing in on all the eyes they have on their videos? I think it is a good marketing idea…..

Canada is no longer an out of the way market that U.S companies do not want to do business with. Many of the hot Canadian companies are all coming together to try to sell themselves. These agencies are going to be traveling around the United States to show marketers that cities like Montreal and Quebec are the ideal new hot spot for market testing. Why is this? According to adage.com, “its language barrier prevents much outside media from seeping in, and vice versa — makes it an ideal place for U.S.-based marketers to experiment with new ideas and approaches before rolling them out to wider audiences.”
Several larger companies such as MasterCard and Mazda are way ahead of the game and have been utilizing Canada as a test market for several years now, both with great success. By testing in a smaller market with a smaller budget, marketers are able to see what works and what does not with out throwing their whole budget out the door. This also allows companies to try a more “out of the box” method.
LeadPile is a head of the game when it comes to working in Canada. Currently we are generating Canadian payday leads in Ontario. We are finding great success generating leads in Ontario and have plans to expand to some of the other Canadian markets.

An old favorite turns 40! Sesame Street had it’s 40 anniversary this week and was celebrated all over including Google’s homepage which changed images daily from one Sesame Street resident to another. Sesame Street has been teaching and entertaining children for 4 decades now, and is probably to thank for a large percentage of the US population under 40 learning how to count to 10.
Sesame Street not only teaches the ABC’s and 123’s, but also teaches acceptance and sets examples for children to follow. According to Newsweek, Sesame Street is now in 16 countries across the world including South Africa were the show features an HIV positive Muppet and in the Palestinian where coexistence and cooperation were displayed. Topics such as death and 9/11 have also been acknowledged by Sesame Street and children with illnesses and conditions are often regularly included on the show as well.
Newsweek states that not only is “Sesame Street no ordinary nonprofit. It is, arguably, the most important children’s program in the history of television. No show has effected the way we think about education, parenting, childhood development and cultural diversity, both in the United States and abroad, more than Big Bird and friends. You might even say that Sesame Street changed the world, one letter at a time”.
It seems too simple that a children’s program created 40 years ago could still be one of the best, but it is and nothing I have seen comes close to comparing. Leadpile wishes Sesame Street a Happy Anniversary!!!!!

September was the eight month in a row that the number of home sales rose. It is common knowledge that if you are planning to buy a home, now is the time. The rock bottom house prices and low finance rates are not the only reason that there have been a month over month increase in the market. The first time home buyer tax credit programs had a large influence in the matter. This program gives up to an $8,000 tax refund to the new buyers. Originally the tax break was supposed to end the first of December, but has been extended through the end of June 2010. The plan will also now help current home owners who have lived in a home for at least five years and want to move into a larger home. These individuals will receive up to a $6,500 tax refund. In addition, the income level has also increased. In order to be eligible, a single individual now can make up to $125, 000 and a couple up to $225, 000 per year.
So will this continue to keep the housing market on the rise and help the economy? Personally, I think it could both help and hurt. If the new home owners are smart and are buying houses that are well within their budget, then the increase in sales/increase in house value will be great for the economy. However, there could be a down side. If people are rushing into buying the houses and bite off more than they can chew, they might end up realizing they can not fully afford their house purchase and the foreclosures could start happening again.
For all you eager beavers out there, just remember that prices are still expected to decrease. With the home owner tax break now extended, you can wait for prices to drop a little more and save some money. Want to know if the housing market is supposed to increase or decrease in value where you live? Check out this link from CNNMoney.com

There seems to be some more positive news in the automobile industry. A recent report is stating the number of people that are going online to search for a car is up in 2009 versus 2008. This is great news considering the industry came to a screeching hault with the falling economy. Webpronews reports that people who depend on the internet to locate a vehicle rose from 40% in 2008 to 46% in 2009. More and more people are starting to bounce back from the struggling economy, therefore they are turning to the internet to tackle a lot of ground work at their fingertips.
The good news for companies like Leadpile and other auto loan lead generators, is that used car buyers visited third party website more frequently than other types of sites, including dealer websites. A large percentage (91%) of those that were searching say they visited at least one third-party website during their shopping process. So if people are doing their homework online first, then we all need to focus on providing as much information as we can to these consumers. I think this auto industry is coming back!

We all know that there are great deals to be had in automotive market right now. Many car dealers are willing to cut their prices and haggle much more than in the past. So buying a new car as a steal should be simple, right? Car dealers may be willing to work with you on price, but when it comes to giving you a loan, not so much.
Unless you are very money savvy or have a great job, buying a car with cash is not always possible. This day in age it is very common for the majority of people to take out a car loan and finance their car. With the market how it is, getting a car loan can be easier said than done. Its not that lenders do not want to give out loans, they are just being much more picky on who they will approve. Also, interest rates are very high at the moment and your credit can make a difference on if you are approved and what interest rate you receive. According to U.S.News, when trying to finance or get a loan for your new car there are a few key facts you should know.
1. Basics of Car Loans – know that you will have to pay an interest rate which includes principal and interest.
2. Car Loan Term – This is the amount of time that you have agreed on to pay the lender back. The car is not yours until you pay back the WHOLE loan and interest.
3. Credit Score – As stated above, interest rate is normally based on an individuals credit score. Usually, the lower the credit score the higher the interest rate.
4. Apply Several Times – Consumers normally apply to several different companies to get their loans. This will give you a better chance to get a loan that suits your exact needs.
At the end of the day it is by no means impossible to get a auto finance loans. LeadPile is also here to help. We match up consumers and lenders who meet each others needs. Hopefully, this helped you realize that with the right knowledge and steps, buying a new car with great financing is not as far out of reach as you may think.