Good advice, and I’ll try to abide by it here.

To be honest though, that doesn’t leave me much room to discuss the puzzling move a major ISP appears to have made recently. You’ve gotta see for yourself.

Wow, that was fast.

A year ago this week, we launched this blog.

It seems like just yesterday we were talking about adding a blog to our educational resources, and just like that, here we are.

See what’s been done, and what’s coming next…

First impressions will take you only so far. Last week, we illustrated how consistency is key to the success of your restaurant.

Even if you leave diners with a good experience the first time they visit, if their next one is poor, they may:

	Never return
	Relay their bad experience to others

In this post, I’d like to suggest two steps to take, whether you think this is an issue for your restaurant or not. In any case, these ideas should help you to identify hidden problems and work with your staff to fix them.

It’s expensive to get people in the door for the first time. If your restaurant relies entirely on these visitors, it’s going to be hard to turn a profit.

Why people don’t return to your restaurant can be hard to figure out. But if you don’t have a regular customer base, it would be reasonable to assume a few things about people who don’t return. For instance:

• They don’t eat out frequently
• They want to try a variety of restaurants
• Their first meal at your restaurant was not enjoyable

These are important, but there’s still one more hurdle that can make the difference between having every seat in your restaurant filled or tumbleweeds blowing through the rows of empty tables on Friday nights.

Most of us think of the doctor as someone who we go to when we’re sick.

The trouble with that is that we don’t address our health proactively/preventatively, and we treat our doctors more like “problem fixers” than health and wellness professionals.

As a practitioner, you have the opportunity (obligation?) to build trust with us through education. And a great way to deliver that education is with opt-in email marketing.

We’ve already looked at some email content ideas for doctors, but we’ve got a couple more…

Affiliate Summit conference organizer, Shawn Collins, threw together a video that’s entirely too funny to not share. His impersonation of Flavor Flav, reasons he uses AWeber, and “AWeber Time” at the end of the video are an entertaining experience.

As we discussed in a recent case study, many businesses use giveaways like free ebooks to get opt-in subscribers.

Bonuses and freebies sweeten the deal for would-be subscribers, and can help you reach people who might not have signed up otherwise.

But like any other sweetener, carelessly-used giveaways ruin your campaign’s flavor and your subscribers’ appetites.

Last time out, we talked about the challenges that face doctors as they try to get more patients (and get the same ones to come back when they should).

It’s hard to build a relationship with someone you only see (maybe) once a year, and convince them to schedule that next checkup, or have their chronic headaches checked out. People come up with all sorts of reasons to just stay away.

So what’s a business-minded M.D. to do?

Let’s look at ways you can use email to build relationships with your patients, reinforce the need for them to come see you, and grow your practice.

When is a “Free” resource or tool a bad thing?

We all like getting something for free. And when you’re a small business, especially if you’re just getting started, you’re probably on a strict budget. So you love finding anything that helps you run your business without spending a penny.

But there are times when “free” ends up costing you.

Not everyone goes to the doctor when they should. You would think that our health would be important enough to us to do so, but many people don’t schedule appointments. And that’s not good for us, or for you.

But why might people avoid visiting you, their neighborhood M.D.? You’re a friendly, helpful practitioner. Your rates are reasonable, your staff is courteous and professional, and you reliably diagnose and treat patients.

It seems there’s no good reason for people to stay away, and yet too many people do.

Let’s look at a few reasons that we don’t visit you as much as you’d like. Next time around, we’ll talk about how you can overcome these common objections with your email campaign.