Blog 95: Health Club Marketing Loss Leader

“Loss leader” health club marketing not to be confused with “lost leader” (a phrase that I have coined), is a health club marketing concept that promotes health club products or health club services at either cost or below cost of how much it cost to purchase or produce those health club products and/or health club services, hence, selling them at a loss.

Loss leader health club marketing has a place in the health club business but must be designed with the desired outcome as the driving force.

One of the ways you can do this is sell (or even give away) drinks at cost or below cost; this is a marketing technique some of the large discount health and fitness stores use to increase traffic. This can be costly, but through this concept you can attract prospective members and draw them into the health club in hopes they impulsively purchase other products.

Another often used health club marketing strategy is to give away a free protein bar to each guest (which can be controlled in-house); again with the hopes that the prospective member then starts to visit the health club and trains in a regular basis. You can apply this health club marketing concept to clothing or shoes or anything else you can afford to sell at cost to draw in prospective members to your health club.

When I say give away, I mean “give away”; which is the true meaning of loss leader in my book. If you sell health club products and/or health club services at cost your only loss is the profit margin which would, in essence, make them a loss leader. The whole idea of a loss leader is to attract and drive in new business that will spend in other areas to make up for your losses and even bring you a modest return.

Loss leader health club marketing is kind of like a “sacrifice fly ball”. A batter sacrifices a hit to bring a runner home i.e., you give up a hit but might win the game.

This is a health club marketing concept that I put a twist on and came up with the term “lost leader” because I don’t really like the idea of feeling a health club needs to suffer a loss to get prospective members in the door. I think it’s much easier to put a twist on health club marketing to get people in the door and still be able to get the rack rate for the health club membership. But sometimes, using the loss leader is a good health club marketing concept for certain health club marketing strategies.

Loss leader health club marketing is not something you can do on a mass scale because the revenue loss would just be too great. But it is something that you can do on a smaller scale, so you might want to think about using this health club marketing concept of the “loss leader” whenever you need just a few new members.

Add loss leader health club marketing campaigns to your health club marketing quiver and you will grow your health club and your health and fitness career.

For more free tips on increasing your health club membership base through health club marketing, health club promotions, professional health club membership sales, and advancing your health and fitness career visit us today @ www.healthclubmarketingmmc.com or call 904-448-5727.