locally promoting my site....?

[garyditsch]

I have a question about getting local people to my site.

While the intention isn't to get people to my site for income, I would like it to generate interest in areas that I could possiblely get clients.

Purpose for site:
1. to provide ideas, motivation, resources for people wanting to make their way through exercise, health issues.

2. to develop a community of people trying to reach common health/fitness goals.

Way I afford the site:
1. personal training/coaching

-- I guess I am wondering how I can get people locally to my site in the most effective manner as they would be the potential clients?

-- I may in the future provide services (that I make income from) through my site, but not yet.

thanks for any suggestions/tips/experiences

garyd

[TVB]

If you have a small community newspaper, you may try contacting one of the lifestyle writers. If you sell it as a resource as opposed to signing people up, you might have success, particularly on slow weekend or holiday weekend. Also, make sure you get in contact again even if you hear nothing around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays when there isn't much to write about anyways. The same goes for the local teevee news---weekends and holidays can be brutal for making up news. Introduce yourself to the local assigment editors and then when they do something about fitness, maybe they'll call you.

Talk radio in your area? Sometimes they have specialized shows. If you want to "sell it", an hour of talk radio is usually fairly inexpensive. If you are a real good salesman, try and sell the producer on why they should do a segment on it.

Bulletin boards---library, market, local colleges/universities

Any continuing ed offered by the local school districts or local community centers? Often, if you can convince them to offer a class that no one else is doing, they'll sign you up to teach it. You'll make a small amount of money, and hopefully one or two students will be inspired to keep you on.

Just some thoughts...in no means exhaustive.

Betsy