Pokémon Go Marketing: A Player’s Guide
Hi. I’m Phil. I’m 34 years old. I have disposable income. I’m engaged. I eat at restaurants. I drink at bars. I see movies in theaters. I pay for live comedy. And I can’t stop playing Pokémon Go.
As of July 15, 2016, Pokémon Go boasted 26 million daily active users. Nearly 11% of all Android devices in the US have the game installed. The average user spends 43 minutes per day on the app. This November, many of us will “Pokémon Go to the polls.” There’s a lot of us. And we want to give you money for your goods and services.
So how do you get me and others like me to buy your stuff? First, download the app, give yourself a nickname, grab your first Bulbasaur (or, for the savvy, Pikachu) and let’s make me spend some money.
You Might Be a Poke Stop
“If you spent the last seven days hearing kids yell ‘Not another Pidgey!’ in your store, you might be a Poke Stop.” — Jeff Meowthworthy
You didn’t ask for it, but you got it. If you stand inside of your business and you see a little spinning cube by you, that means you have a nearby Poke Stop. Congratulations! You won the Pokémon Go location lottery!
A Poke Stop is a real-world location where trainers (the preferred name of players) can get items. The items replenish every 5 minutes, so they are incentivized to stick around your business.
Poke Stops generally favor public places like libraries, religious institutions, street art, and the occasional restaurant or store. There may be opportunities to purchase a nearby Poke Stop in the future, but for now the placement is relatively random.
“But wait! I have a gigantic colorful tower with a cartoon monster on top by my business. Is that a Poke Stop?”
No, but double congratulations! You have a gym nearby, where trainers can challenge each other by battling their strongest Pokémon. You don’t need to know the game dynamics. Just know that trainers can spend a boatload of time battling against other teams.
Nothing by you? No problem! You can still get me to open up my wallet in the name of Pokémon.
Lure Us In
Now things start to get a little more advanced. If you’re by a Poke Stop, you can use items called ‘lures’ to get more Pokémon to wander into your business for the next 30 minutes. And where the Pokémon go, we go.
To buy lures, click on the Pokeball (the red and white circle thing) at the bottom of the overview screen, then click on ‘SHOP’. Select the desired amount of Pokecoins to purchase. The more you buy at once, the better deal you get per coin. You can then use those coins to purchase lures. Again, the more you buy, the cheaper they are.
If you’re fully committed to getting our business, buy the 14,500 Pokecoins pack for $99.99 and use them 21 packs of 8 lures. You will now have 168 lures, which, if they are used every half hour, will last 84 hours. If your establishment is open 8 hours per day, that means you get 10.5 full days of additional customers at the cost of $1.19 per hour. Unless you’re selling Fabergé eggs or “I Hate Pokémon Go” t-shirts, you’re going to make far more than that in new customer acquisitions.
Talk to your neighboring businesses about buying lures together. Here’s an example of five businesses in Hollywood that all benefitted from a Poke Stop with a lure I visited yesterday:
Facilitate Meet Ups
Once you get to level 5, you can declare yourself as Team Valor, Team Mystic, or Team Instinct (also known as Team Valor and ‘two wrong choices’). These teams can fight to claim gyms together or, most importantly, self-identify, high five, then travel in packs. If you’re planning a meet up consider targeting a single team if you’re near a gym.
It’s easy to encourage meet ups nowadays, especially using the infrastructure players have already built. There are Facebook groups dedicated to teams in cities across the world waiting for you to give us a reason to get together. Use resources like MeetUp.com or EventBrite to promote the event. Then all you need is a compelling reason for us to come. This could be as simple as 10% off a drink or as complex as ‘we drew a map that starts at my establishment and ends at my establishment and in the next 2 hours we will walk to 18 Poke Stops and 2 Gyms’.
Encourage Social Sharing
One of our collective favorite things to do in Pokémon Go is to take silly pictures of Pokémon in weird situations. When we get a great shot, we can’t wait to share it on our social outlets. Encourage us!
Share a hashtag for your establishment (like the #rushstreetcc example above) so we can see what other trainers have been playing in our immediate area. And feel free to share what Pokémon have been spotted there. If a Vaporeon wanders into your vicinity, it may just cause a stampede.
And while you’re at it, why not use Pokémon Go to build your own social media profiles. Pop a few shots of Pokémon in your business using the hashtag #PokemonGo or put up some tweets about Weedles in your restaurant.
Wifi and Charging Stations: The Final Incentive
If your business requires customers to spend any amount of time within your walls and you don’t have wifi, it’s time to get and promote it. There’s nothing worse while playing Pokémon Go than losing Pokémon or experiencing errors because of slow wifi or poor cellular service.
If you don’t have charging stations, get and promote them. They are exceptionally cheap and wildly appreciated. Pokémon Go drains batteries fast. I have an iPhone 6 Plus and I generally have to give my phone two full charges per day.
No Judging
Most importantly, make us feel like we’re embraced for loving this crazy new app. We know that it’s ‘geeky’ but we don’t need to hear it from businesses. So if you’re thinking of making jokes about Pokémon Go as part of your marketing strategy, make jokes from the perspective of a fan and lay off the ’40 year old virgin’ or ‘cartoons are for kids’ snark.
Parting Words
I and hundreds of millions of other trainers will be playing this game for the next few months. If the game launches cool new features that keep us engaged, we’ll play long beyond that. And we’ll spend money. Millions. Take our money. Please.
