If you use email marketing to notify your customers of special offers and upcoming events, every new subscriber may seem like a source of potential business growth. However, if your expanding contacts aren't adding to your bottom line, managing your email marketing list may be the answer.

Customers are using tools like Unroll.me to rid their inboxes of unwanted or irrelevant marketing communications, but don't let that hurt your feelings. Instead, view this as a healthy and necessary purge of contacts that are very unlikely to convert — and a chance to cultivate a list of brand-new, high-potential leads.

Think of it as an opportunity to start fresh. Those segmented workflows you've been putting off? Now's your time to figure them out. Have some new acquisition techniques you want to test? There's never been a better opportunity than now.

In this post, we'll review some the strategies to help manage your email marketing list. We're focusing on your internal marketing campaigns sent to your subscribers, rather than paid email campaigns where you select a target audience. We'll talk about what you can learn from your lean email list, ways you can take advantage of a smaller cohort and how to build a new list of highly qualified and interested leads.

Lead-generating tactics play an important role in the digital age. There are hundreds of ways that businesses can get their names out there, but these three basic concepts form a good foundation for a lead-generation strategy. By investing in these three areas, you can boost sales and make a serious online impact.

Paid Search

Paid search is one of the most popular lead-generating tactics, and for good reason: It works. The idea behind paid search is that it can serve your ads to literally anyone who might be interested in your product and, when used effectively, can actually help improve other marketing tactics.

As online shopping continues to gain favor with customers, maintaining foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores is an ongoing challenge for retail brands. Location information offers at least a partial solution to these headaches, leveraging data from shopper smartphones to improve targeting based on geography.

Savvy business owners realize the importance of considering location in their brand marketing strategy.

Here are three actions that any company can take to seize this opportunity and attract local shoppers.

You don't want to reach just any customer. You want to build relationships with the people who will become brand loyalists because your products or services suit them perfectly. You can find your target customer by honing in on the ideal customer pool.

We do this by carefully creating a targeting strategy that focuses on an enjoyable customer experience, getting a well-timed message to the locations where your ideal customers are spending time and sending gentle reminders about your business to the websites they frequent. Sounds good? Let's dig in. 

If you're a small business, the Super Bowl of sales is just around the corner. Do you have your Small Business Saturday marketing ideas lined up and ready to go? If not, don't worry. There are ways to ensure your business scores a touchdown.

Small Business Saturday is the perfect opportunity for small business owners to double down on their marketing strategies and find new customers by using eye-catching content. Learn how to get the most out of the small business event of the season.

How to Get All Eyes on Your Business

Let's say the wing-it approach isn't working. You've decided building a marketing strategy and tracking your progress will help you meet your business goals. But where do you start?

It takes more than a bulleted list of talking points and an eye-catching logo to build brand recognition for your company, according to Marketing Land. The ideal first step is to think about the process as a whole. Sure, it's enticing to jump into creating messaging, but let's lay the groundwork for success first.

Identifying Your Basic Marketing Needs

There's no reason to launch a creative campaign before you've defined your goals, explored your resources and accepted the amount and type of work you can realistically manage.

1. What are your goals?

You want more sales, more recognition and to become the brand that rolls off the tips of tongues everywhere. But dig deeper. Have you identified factors that can be measured and evaluated over time?

Chances are, you've probably heard about the General Data Protection Regulation, a policy that took effect May 25, 2018, and requires organizations across the world to change the way they obtain and store customer data from citizens of the European Union. 

But, even if you're a U.S.-based local business that doesn't store information from anyone in the EU, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the policy because other regions may soon adopt similar requirements — which could have significant ramifications for your local digital marketing.

Here's what local businesses need to know: 

Local Solutions is proud to have worked with Body Details for the past three years. In this Business Spotlight, learn how Local Solutions helped grow this 4 location laser clinic to 7, delivering over 100% revenue growth in less than 3 years.

Body Details has dared to be different, bold, and strategic as a small business in a major market. They recognized the importance of being present through all stages of the consumers’ buying journey, while understanding that efficiency is critical to success. As behaviors continue to shift online, Local Solutions and Body Details have worked closely together to ensure the campaign approach adjusts to engage with and market to the right clientele.

“We partnered with Cox Media Group, a media company that has deep roots at the local level and national expertise. Together, we have embarked on an omni-channel marketing campaign focused on lead generation.” Says Claudio Sorrentino, owner of Body Details.

There are still a couple weeks left in 2017, but marketers are already looking toward next year and the new marketing trends they should factor into their budgets. While it's impossible to know specifically what challenges the new year will bring, a few 2018 marketing trends are already forming.

Invest in Video Ads, Especially on Facebook

Streaming video on social media was one of the biggest growth drivers in 2017, so it comes as no great surprise that the trend will continue into next year. Recode reported that video ad spending is expected to grow 49 percent (to roughly $18 billion) in 2018.

As streaming on laptops and other large-display devices further declines, mobile streaming will continue to dominate other devices. Although mobile video has spread across the web, the most views in 2018 will still come from social media — specifically Facebook — making spending on this platform essential in the new year for even the most budget-conscious marketers.

There's no denying the power of content marketing. Not only does it cost 62 percent less than outbound marketing efforts, it also generates more than three times the number of leads, according to Demand Metric.

However, while a well-developed content marketing strategy can keep your audience engaged and your sales pipeline full, not every organization is successful in their efforts. So, what can you do to make sure your strategy delivers the results you want?

Here are three common questions that marketers must ask themselves when creating and optimizing content.