In the competitive field of fitness, marketing your health club can be quite the challenge, not to mention cripplingly expensive for the smaller company. So how can you drum up extra business without breaking the bank?

Traditional advertising such as the local Yellow Pages, or radio and television, however small the station, are just too far out of the advertising budget that many health clubs have to work with. In addition, how well this kind of investment works is almost impossible to track. You may indeed be gaining a new member as a result of a commercial they have seen or heard, but the chances are you will forget to ask, and the new member will more than likely simply neglect to mention how they stumbled upon your services. However, in order to survive and prosper, marketing your health club successfully is crucial.

There is another, very effective and economical method of marketing your health club that you may have never considered, or even heard much about. In today’s economic climate, the savvy health club owner should consider the great power of online advertising. Thanks to the great spread of everyday Internet use by exactly the people you need to target and the power of major search engines like Google, you can target specific geographical areas for people searching basic keywords, in this case things like “health club” “gym” and “physical fitness”. Even better, online advertising lets you target the specific demographic you are seeking. If you specialize in personal fitness for the more mature person for instance, you can target them directly.

But how does this kind of marketing really convert into great health club advertising? To be most effective you need to direct the person who clicked on your brief little online ad to a more expansive “landing page”. On this page you need to create a great and compelling reason for this potential new health club member, or visitor (they are “visiting” your page now) to share their basic contact information with you. Perhaps you could try offering a free week with a personal trainer or a free aerobics class, some kind of great offer that the “visitor” will find hard to resist and will be persuaded to fill in the contact form. The results of these contacts are emailed to you directly in real time, allowing you to act immediately and follow up promptly.

This is the true beauty of using the Internet and this kind of health club advertising is how little it costs. You will only be charged for potential customers who take the time to “click” on your ad specifically, those people who are demonstrating a real interest in your health club. Online advertising like this really is the best and economically sensible way to make the best of your health club marketing dollar.