Health club marketing opportunities are everywhere and are only limited by your own creativity. Your small club is definitely newsworthy, whether you believe it or not. Your health club will always is rewarded when doing something to help others

1. Establish a food drive

The trick is to partner with a homeless shelter of food pantry and tell all of your local newspapers and tv stations about the charitable arrangement you established. With all the bad news permeating the airwaves, your positive news will be a welcome addition. You can promote your offer with a headline such as “1/2 off enrollment when you donate 5 cans of food!”

2. Write for your town’s newspaper

You can volunteer to write up a fitness tips section for your local newspaper. There might even be multiple opportunities if there are other smaller newspapers or local newsletters or area magazines you could write for. And don’t forget websites. There are probably some local sites that would appreciate free content from you. If you write poorly, it shouldn’t be hard to find a colleague, significant other, or employee to write for you

3. Partner with your local radio station

The DJ can be your main contact person and they can help you promote a 2 month weight loss program to their listeners, who just happen to be local prospects for your fitness business. The DJ can make announcements regularly over the air, can get lots of listeners to send in applications, and form two teams to compete against each other to make the announcements more exciting. Make sure as part of the contest all contestants receive a complimentary membership. This will be a benefit to the radio station since they get to offer this bonus to their listeners. You can even give something to the people who weren’t selected for the contest and/or ask for their contact information to follow up with them.

4. Run a contest for charity

Your members can get people to pledge money for the amount of exercising that you do. I.e. A dollar for every step you take on a stairclimber. You may not even have many people take part in the program, but it really doesn’t make a difference. The radio station will still make a story out of it. Anything that puts some good news on the air is always welcome in our times of gloom and doom typical of media these days.

5. Host fitness seminars

At your local community center or chamber of commerce you will find a listing of presentations put on by local experts and hobbyists. From soccer skills to business planning, you will find a little bit of everything. They will be presented by experts and those who simply avid enthusiasts. Keep in mind that if someone is already on the schedule to promote fitness, find out specifically what their topic is and choose a different fitness related topic. There are so many different things you could present. And their organization does all of the promotional campaigning for the presentations, but it would be a good idea to do a little marketing for your fitness business as well.

6. Promote one of your members as local hero

Give the media what they want…Positive stories! Ask your members to submit applications to be in the “Local Hero” contest. They can discuss how your health club has provided the support to help them reach their goals and be a local hero. Once a winner is selected, write a press release and send it to all local media groups. It can say “Local citizen earns hero recognition”, or something similar. Don’t forget to give a prize to all applicants, and maybe even put their success stories on a “Wall of Fame” to show prospects when the visit your health club. This is a very powerful health club marketing strategy!

Of course, these 7 strategies only scratch the surface of how you can get free publicity in your fitness facility. Be creative and you will see your club become more popular the more proactive you are in your PR efforts.