Blog 21: Lost Leader Health Club Marketing

Throughout MMC®’s site, you will hear the term “lost leader” used as a health club marketing strategy. The more familiar (conventional) marketing term for this concept is often confused with “loss leader” (something sold at a loss in order to draw prospective members); but since you don’t always have to suffer a loss when coming up with an effective health club marketing campaign (if you’re a forward thinker); I have coined another concept that I choose to call the “lost leader”. “Loss” infers “no longer having something e.g. sold at a loss” (perceived on the surface to be negative); whereas, “lost” infers “wasted or not taken advantage of” and finding lost money or a profit center that has been underperforming and turning into a revenue-producing entity, now becomes “found money” evoking positive feelings.

I want you to look for the areas of your business that have been “wasted and not taken advantage of” as opposed to the feeling you must always suffer a “loss” in order to draw in new members. It is not my goal, to have you sell anything “at a loss”, nor do I want you to conceptualize this concept as having to “lose” something to gain something, i.e., a trade. This is a health club marketing concept of finding possible resources that may have been “wasted or not taken advantage of” and maximize their potential. You will “lose” nothing and you will gain new members; hence, the term, “lost leader” health club marketing.

Let’s use baseball as an analogy to describe how a “loss leader” health club marketing campaign might be effective. Sometimes in baseball, you have a couple of runners on base and you want to advance them into a scoring position so you decide to tell your batter to hit a sacrifice bunt so they will throw him out at first (although he could still possibly make it safe to first base), advancing other runners around the bases in hopes that you will have a better chance of scoring runs by making this sacrifice. Health clubs do this all of the time when they give out a free personal training session, free tanning session, free t-shirt, or a free gym bag to anyone who brings in a guest. They take a hit (loss) on the smaller of the two products or services to make a bigger return on the greater of the two, balancing out their profit margin on both.

I personally prefer “lost leader” health club marketing because it is based on finding something within your health club that may have been overlooked or is underproducing and making it profitable and/or as a springboard for another product or service that can be even more profitable. Health clubs can view their non-primetime memberships as possible Lost Leaders.

Your health club is full of Loss Leaders and Lost Leaders to help you more effectively market your health club so start looking for them and then capitalize on their possibilities.

Lost leader health club products and health club services are perfect tools for attracting new members, so incorporate these new tools into your health club marketing 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.