Leadpile’s Blog

There was a recent report by Channel 15, that brought up a study done by Vanderbilt University. In this study it pointed out, “Payday loan customers who are approved on their first application are more likely to file for bankruptcy than those whose initial applications are denied, according to a study out of Vanderbilt Law School. ” I am not sure I understand where this is going as far as trying to point out a bankruptcy filing rate with those that took out a payday loan. The people that could not get a payday loan probably did not qualify for the loans because of some sort of income issue or other specific requirement the payday lenders require. I would think this sort of individual had more potential of falling behind and contemplate bankruptcy, don’t you think?
Leadpile Lead Exchange has been generating payday loan leads for some time now. Blaming or relating  bankruptcy filing rates to those that have taken out a payday loan, and not those that have been approved for one, just does not make sense to me. Does this also mean that someone who took out a new auto finance loan is more likely to file bankruptcy, versus someone that applied for an auto finance loan and was denied? There are people that have a lot of outstanding past due debt that I would say is more of a correlation to filing bankruptcy, versus someone who took out a payday loan.  Those that did not manage their debts properly, had an expected loss of job, or those that had a major financial change in their life are more of a cause of someone filing bankruptcy. Payday loan = bankruptcy?  Payday loan = what else?

The signatures are in……. 422,000 consumers in Ohio signed a petition in order to have the payday lending issue on the November ballot. The governor signed in June a law that puts some limitations on the annual percentage rate the payday lenders can charge. The governor capped the APR at 28 percent, and put a limit on the number of loans customers can take to four loans per year.
Based on the petitions submitted, consumers think they should have the right to make their own decisions when it comes to their personal financial matters. Those that signed the petition also think that allowing the restrictions to go through will force businesses to close and 6,000 employees to lose their jobs.
According to paydayfact.org, all Americans should have the choice to make their own decisions about getting a payday loan. High costs to doing the loan or not, consumers in Ohio want to decide on their own if they need these payday loans. Many Americans are in dire need of some quick cash, and to them these payday loans are the temporary fix. We shall see what the final decision is on this matter come the November election.

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!