{"id":7546,"date":"2016-08-20T15:39:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T10:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/?p=7546"},"modified":"2016-08-22T11:35:16","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T06:05:16","slug":"how-pokemon-go-is-driving-sales-to-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/?p=7546","title":{"rendered":"How Pok\u00e9mon Go Is Driving Sales To Small Businesses?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know that Pok\u00e9mon was originally an abbreviated form for Pocket Monster? The franchise started in 1995 and spawned various video game versions, a famous animated series, even movies, toys and comic books. The newest iteration is the Pok\u00e9mon Go, a location-based, augmented reality video game for mobile phones.\"coffee\"<\/p>\n

As the Pok\u00e9mon Go craze is sweeping across the globe \u2013 it\u2019s at the top of the download charts<\/a> nowadays \u2013 various other businesses are taking advantage of the popularity of the game to increase their own business. Pok\u00e9mon Go is everywhere on social media, making its presence felt on Twitter and Snapchat and others. And, it\u2019s proving to be a real sales driver for small businesses.<\/p>\n

Related Article:\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go Comes Storming Into Our World<\/a><\/p>\n

Have a look at how small businesses are cashing in on this phenomenon:<\/p>\n

If your business is a Pokestop<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If your business happens to be one or even near such a\u00a0 Pokestop, you can attract the players to your shop or restaurant by advertising this outside your door. The great thing about Pok\u00e9mon Go is that it gets people out of their houses and outside. If your business happens to be a Pokestop, footfall will increase to your business without you having to do much. For example, if you have a coffee shop that is also a Pokestop, you can put up a board saying so at your door. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas got creative and photographed the Pokestops across their grounds and blogged about it. A few bars and coffee shops have created some special items on their menus to go with the Pok\u00e9mon theme or are offering discounts to players.\"sign-to-pokemon-go\"<\/p>\n

Lure \u2018em in<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Another easy way is to buy a lure and just sit back and watch. A lure is an in-app purchase and it increases the number of generated Pok\u00e9mons wherever they are placed for a duration of half an hour. Although it does not seem like a lot, it is a lot harder to catch Pok\u00e9mon and using the Lure-tool can be a boon. Most of the players are tired or thirsty after all that walking and running around, and don\u2019t require much prompting to buy a pizza or a drink. Lures are inexpensive too, and you can buy eight-packs of lures. L\u2019iniozio, a pizzeria in Long Island City, Queens, did this and their business increased by 75%. So that means that you are paying just about a couple of dollars (a couple of hundred rupees) for this. Calculate this, and you can see that the return on investment is incredible.\"poke<\/p>\n

If your business is near a Pokegym<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Pok\u00e9mon stops are where you catch and train your Pok\u00e9mon. Pok\u00e9mon gyms, on the other hand, are places where you can compete and fight with other Pok\u00e9mon trainers. Pokegyms are different because you can\u2019t use lures here. Usually, a gym is controlled by one of three teams, Mystic, Valour or Instinct, and trainers fight all day to gain control over a gym. City Sen Lounge in Michigan is giving discounts to customers affiliated with Team Mystic. You can buy special, customized giveaway badges with your business name on it. Or, as this caf\u00e9 did, you can put up a board to show which team is currently in control of the Pok\u00e9mon Gym. Then offer members of that particular gym discounts.\"pokegym\"<\/p>\n

If you are neither near a Pokestop nor a Pokegym<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Even if your business is not in the vicinity of a Pok\u00e9mon Stop or Pok\u00e9mon Gym, you can go to a place which is a Pokestop, for example, and advertise your business there. You can also utilize one of your staff as a Pok\u00e9mon player representing your shop or caf\u00e9; he can catch Pok\u00e9mon and share it on social media platforms with hashtags. And if he is lucky enough to find a rare Pok\u00e9mon, sharing this info with other players will definitely get you more footfalls. You can even create a map of all the Pok\u00e9mons available in your nearby area and post it on social media with the relevant hashtags. That is bound to get footfalls in and around your place.<\/p>\n

These are just some ways you can utilize this new trend to increase your business presence. But beware of some pitfalls too. Not all restaurant-goers will appreciate the intrusion of teenagers stuck on their phones and roaming about the restaurant without a care for the comfort of other diners. Also, even if the number of people visiting your place of business has increased, it does not mean that all of them are going to be paying customers. Currently, you cannot apply or make a purchase to become a Pokemon Stop or Pokemon Gym, hopefully, the developers will recognize the opportunity here and implement it in the near future.<\/p>\n

The popularity of Pok\u00e9mon Go, as with other social media phenomenon, might fade a few months from now, but you will surely have made some good customers. So, if you want to push the sales for your small business, it\u2019s time you jumped on the Pok\u00e9mon bandwagon.<\/p>\n

Also Read:\u00a0Super Powers Of Sellers: Marketing Lessons From Pok\u00e9mon Go<\/a><\/p>\n

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.<\/p>\n

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Did you know that Pok\u00e9mon was originally an abbreviated form for Pocket Monster? The franchise started in 1995 and spawned various video game versions, a famous animated series, even movies, toys and comic books. The newest iteration is the Pok\u00e9mon Go, a location-based, augmented reality video game for mobile phones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423],"tags":[2603,2601,2606,2605,2604,2602],"class_list":["post-7546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-startup-blogs","tag-business-by-pokemon","tag-businesses","tag-poke-center","tag-poke-gym","tag-poke-stop","tag-small-businesses"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pokemon_smallBusiness.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7554,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions\/7554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}