Why Pokemon Go is good for business

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So, have you heard? The new Pokemon Go game on the app store is driving businesses crazy. It’s also driving a lot of residents crazy. Now, if you haven’t heard about the Pokemon Go app, which I only heard about it 2 days ago, it’s an app that actually downloads to your phone and you go out and find the little Pokemon people, all the little Pokemon characters. But, the thing is you can’t see the characters with the naked eye so the only way that you see it is through the app and when you see you them you have a red ball at the bottom of the app and you push it up and you catch the Pokemon. So, for me, my children grew up growing, catching, and trading Pokemon cards so I understand the concept about how Pokemons work. But, what it is, it’s a game that  was released a week ago on the app store and after it’s launched it has absolutely exploded. It has had twice as many people install this game than Tinder. What does that say? Hmm.

It also has double the engagement in Snapchat. It clips in twitter as well. The percentage of daily users that are actually using this game is amazing. What makes it different from other apps or other games?

The fact is that it actually takes the user, the person who wants to play the game, out. So, you have to get up and travel,  you will see on the geo-map where the little characters are, and you seek and fine them, the characters have different points and you can also be a part of  a team, once you find your Pokemon, you scroll up, okay, and catch them.

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My daughter was telling me and a couple of other people were telling me that they have Pokemons around their workplaces, the Pokemons are geographicallyplaced everywhere.

That means that the business owner doesn’t know that it’s there, until they find people wanting to scroll up whilst they are looking at their phone.It’s driving business owners crazy, I know of a couple people that are saying, “These people are just coming into my store, leaning over my counters, swiping up to catch the Pokemon.” Just this past weekend we had the Pokemon Go Walk here in Cairns, with over 500 people walking the esplanade looking for Pokemons.

I also was talking to a client yesterday who said that unfortunately, the other side of this and this is where you need to be aware, and I’ll explain a lure in a minute but people are using lures to get people out and the criminals are now actually robbing people. So, that’s the terrible side, and the player should be definitely aware of their surroundings and always be as safe as possible.

How can you as a business owner get more traffic? How can you cash in on this phenomenon that has people running around towns and cities all over the world using this app? I’m glad you asked. As a business owner you can actually sit back and throw a lure out and enjoy the show.

Pokemon offers a range of in-app purchases. One of the most important actions for your small business is to purchase a lure. A lure increases the rate of Pokemon generation in an area around a Pokemon stop. That may not sound as powerful as what you want but the Pokemon players, will be lured to where the Pokemon are, if you have a shop, imagine what you can offer to increased traffic of people, you can offer discounts to different teams, it is exciting what you can do, for a very minimal cost.

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Melbourne Central’s Pancake Parlour set up a number of Pokémon Nights at the store – Users can pay $12 for some pancakes, free Wi-Fi and constant Lure Module activation. Lure Modules are purchasable in-game items that attract Pokémon to the area for 30 minutes at a time- [button link=”http://www.smartcompany.com.au/marketing/71903-eight-businesses-that-have-taken-pokemon-go-marketing-to-the-next-level/” newwindow=”yes”] Read more[/button]

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Luring is an insane powerful tool that makes people come to your business, right? So here’s an example how it works. If you throw a lure out, people will see the little icon and start coming to where that lure is and if you own a business you’re actually increasing the amount of foot traffic, okay. So that’s one idea. Now, it’s really cheap to do this so it’s affordable to create a luring device so let’s say for $100 you can net over 14,500 Pokemons and buying a pack. So, I’m not going to do the maths for you but basically it works out at $1.19 an hour to have foot traffic coming to your business. So all you have to do is tap the red ball, download the Pokemon Go game, okay. If you want to do this, tap the red ball at the bottom of the hub, there’s a little red ball down here, tap shop and then scroll down and tap the purple box that’s marked lure purchases. You’ll then be redirected to the app store where you can buy your lure and once back in the app, tap the red Pokemon again and the items and it’s activated then you’ve created a lure for your business.

For a little less or a little more than a dollar an hour, you can basically drive guaranteed numbers of people to your business. Pretty cool, huh? So, the return on investment here is ridiculous. So just start thinking outside the box, you can put a Pokemon stop anywhere or, or try it anywhere. You can capitalize your business being next to a Pokemon stop. You can go to ingress I-N-G-R-E-S-S map, open up the Pokemon go and have a look for tall structures and have a look for Pokemons and see where you’re going to put your lure.

Now, this is where you can get a little bit more funky. You can give away Pokemon badges that are customized with your business so you can go and order these badges and have them there and give them away. You can keep score, you can have a Pokemon board out the front of your business, and you can show which teams are actually in control of [gyms 00:05:41] and areas. You can get social by starting to take screenshots of what’s happening in your business and putting them on your social media platform. You’ve actually done 3 things for more, just over a dollar an hour with a massive amount of foot traffic to your business.

That’s what I would do if I had a store. I don’t have a store, I work from home. However, if I did have a shop and I wanted a little bit more foot traffic and I wanted to cash in on this Pokemon game, that’s exactly what I would be doing. I would be buying my lure and luring the crowds in, I would then be giving away some Pokemon badges with my business name on it because this thing is just going wild so why not tap into it? I’ve been keeping score so people can come back and see that real businesses are actually interacting. You could even have a competition with the Pokemon game users out there, saying, you know, take a photo of this or take a photo of that and upload it to social media. And, get social, start taking photos of people that are playing this game and, you know, shots of your businesses and sending it live.

So, who knows where this game will go but within a week it’s just hit massive amounts of people and they’re loving it so you as a business owner, you could be loving the extra foot traffic as well. So, that’s my social media minute this morning. I hope you enjoyed it. I will do a video later today to try and do some screenshots so that you can see how you can capitalize on Pokemon Go. I hope it’s not driving you crazy. Ciao for now.

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