The news of Pokemon Go is probably storming and flooding your social media timeline and news headlines by now. This Augmented Reality (AR) based game took gamers around the world by storm. Players are traveling and moving their city, region, and even the world to catch Pokemon in popular landmarks and in the wild. As of the time of writing this, the app has more than 26 million of downloads, breaking the record of the most downloaded apps in many countries.
Pokemon Go is available few days ago in Malaysia and Singapore. There are already millions of people playing it out there.
If you’re running a local business, how could you miss out the opportunity to leverage on this fad? Here’s some strategies you can use to attract people to your business, by taking advantage from Pokemon Go!
1. Pokéstops
If you have a physical store, open up the game and see whether your store is one of the Pokéstops. If it is, congratulations! You have a good head start. Pokéstops are essential places for players to collect items like Pokéballs and eggs–items that they must replenish in order to catch more Pokémon. Pokéstops will be the most visited places and you can place a Lure Module to attract Pokémon nearby to that particular location.
If your office or shop location is not being marked as a Pokéstops, don’t be disappointed. To circumvent this you can partner with a Pokéstops and see if there’s any synergy both of your business can achieve. While it is still not able to create or submit your location as a Pokéstops, the game developer, Niantic says it’s in development. So keep your hopes up.
2. Social Media Challenges
Challenge your social media followers on the game achievements! For instance, you can give % of discount to your products or service if they catch a certain amount of Pokémon, or reach certain player levels. Associating your business with a Pokémon can have an impact as well. Let’s say your business theme is yellow color, you can offer a free gift to every Pikachu your customers caught. Pay attention to copyright and trademark issues though when you use Pokémon characters in your marketing materials.
3. Pick a Team
In Pokemon Go, upon reaching level 5 you get to pick a team out of three to join. There’s Team Mystic (Blue), Team Instinct (Yellow) and Team Valor (Red). It’s easy to associate your business with one of the team by the colors, but if the colors don’t fit, feel free to pick any!
Encourage your customers to join the same team as you. Offer everyone in the same team for something good, like 10% off the coffee from your menu!
4. Offer “Power Juice”
By “Power Juice” I really just mean providing the players’ phones with power for their battery, via powerbank or wall charge. If your shop is not a Pokéstops, offer Pokemon Go players something to recharge their phones before they venture into their next journey. If you happen to be running a restaurant, then you can help to refill their bellies as well as batteries.
5. Create Content That Helps Players
If all the above are not very relevant on what you can leverage for your business (as if you’re running an online-only business), you can create useful content that can help the players.
Mark down the local map (where most of your customers are in) for Pokémon location as well as Pokéstops. Additionally you can also plan a trip in the map, where they can get the most Pokémon as well as able to replenish their Pokéballs in Pokéstops.
These are just a few ideas that you can work with. There’s plenty more you can do to leverage Pokemon Go during this fad.
Pokemon Go is just one of the video games that can be beneficial to your health while you are playing it. In addition, you can find out 12 surprising health benefits of playing video games here.
If you see any good marketing examples for this, why not share with us in our Facebook Page?
Stay safe and hope you catch plenty of rare Pokemon!
Sanz Teoh
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