Four Ways to put Pokemon Go to work for your small business

POKEMON Go isn’t just doing big business for Nintendo. There are four simple ways you can make money from it, too.

BY NOW, you’ve probably heard of the augmented-reality mobile game Pokemon Go, in which players move throughout the real world to hunt for and capture digital Pokemon.

It might seem trivial or irrelevant to your business at first glance, but since the game is geographically based, there are a number of ways you can use it to attract local players to your location and, hopefully, convert them into paying customers.

There are two types of fixed locations in the game that are important to most of these strategies. The first are known as PokeStops, which are buildings or places of note around a city where players swing by to grab some extra Poke Balls and potions. Many of these stops are businesses, but even if yours isn’t one a PokeStop is still likely nearby.

The other type of fixture is called a “gym”, where players battle their Pokemon in a bid to gain control of the location for their team. Both of these locations regularly attract players multiple times a day and can be leveraged into generating more patronage for your business. After extensive, tireless weekend research into Pokemon Go, Business News Daily has worked out a few ways to capitalise on the craze.

A picture taken on July 14, 2016 shows an avatar on the screen of a mobile phone as a player uses the Pokemon Go application on their mobile phones as they wait with members of the media opposite the door of 10 Downing Street in central London. Pokemon Go mania has players armed with smartphones hunting streets, parks, rivers, landmarks and other sites to capture monsters and gather supplies. The free app, based on a Nintendo title that debuted 20 years ago, has been adapted to the mobile internet age by Niantic Labs, a company spun out of Google last year. / AFP PHOTO / OLI SCARFF

1. HOST A LURE PARTY

One item that can be placed on PokeStops is called a “lure module.” Once activated, lure modules will attract wild Pokemon (and, more important, players) to that location.

Consider buying a package of lure modules and advertising a night as “Pokemon Go Lure Party!”

If your business is on or near a PokeStop, hosting a lure party could be a great way to bring players to your establishment. It’s a cheap and easy form of marketing; create a Pokemon Go account by downloading it for free from the Google Play or App stores, buy a package of lure modules with a few dollars of real-world cash, and then just set them up at your nearest PokeStop. Each lure is active for 30 minutes, so you can use them in succession to create a lure party that lasts as long as you’d like. Coupling a lure party with some special deals could be a great way to bring in some extra money.

This Wednesday, July 13, 2016, photo, shows "Pokemon Go" on a smartphone in front of a church, in San Francisco. As players of the addictive smartphone game “Pokemon Go” traipse around real-world landmarks in pursuit of digital monsters, some ticked-off property owners are asking to have their positions in the game removed. The list includes the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Arlington National Cemetery and several ordinary churches and cemeteries. (AP Photo/David Hamilton)

2. GYM BATTLE TOURNAMENTS

Maybe your business is closer to a Pokemon Gym than a PokeStop. In that event, there’s another way you can incentivise players to come patronise your business. Advertise that you’ll be hosting a tournament in advance, perhaps even offering discounts to gym battle winners. Then, on game day, players who successfully become gym leaders (with proof of gamer ID) will be entitled to that discount. Not only is it a great way to harness those intense Pokemon Go rivalries for your business, but to hold gyms teams need multiple members to defend it. So, while you’re giving discounts to the gym leaders, their teammates will be there alongside them as well, most likely as full-paying customers.

In this Wednesday, July 13, 2016, photo, provided by the Muncie Animal Shelter in Muncie, Ind., shelter superintendent Phil Peckinpaugh holds a terrier mix as he plays “Pokemon Go” in Muncie, Ind. Peckinpaugh came up with the idea of asking "Pokemon Go" players to walk an adoptable dog as they wander the streets of the eastern Indiana city doing battle with digital monsters on their smartphones. (Phil Peckinpaugh/Muncie Animal Shelter via AP)

3. HOST A POKE-HUNT

Hosting a communitywide Pokemon Go hunt that starts and ends at your business’s doorstep is a strategy that’s not contingent on the proximity of gyms of PokeStops.

All you have to do is advertise the date and time of your family-friendly Poke-hunt, wait for players to gather, and then depart together for a stroll around your neighbourhood. Your staff might even join the hunters in branded shirts to make sure your business is visible through the entire event. Of course, as it is with any good Poke-hunt, there’s an after-party. Invite the hunters back to your establishment for some trainer talk and to compare their hauls. This is an especially effective tactic for restaurants.

Cactus Jacks at Cannon Park is cashing in on Pokemon Go. Cactus Staff Hong-Quan Do and Jackson Coppola

4. POKEMON GO SOCIAL MEDIA DEALS

You can even use Pokemon Go to increase your visibility on social media. Offer customers a few dollars off to take a screenshot of a Pokemon in your store or restaurant and then post it on social media with a tag to your business. While it might just be a few dollars off for them, it spreads your brand online. It also shows other nearby players how many rare and exotic Pokemon are crawling around your establishment, and it might encourage them to come visit and maybe spend a few dollars of their own.

Pokemon Go allows you to capture Pokemon in a real world environment and is taking the region by storm. Players James Schukin of Upper Coomera and Ryan Korondy of Bundall on the hunt at Evandale. Picture Glenn Hampson

THE FUTURE OF POKEMON GO

The rumour mill is swirling with talk of future Pokemon Go updates that will allow trainers to trade Pokemon and items. If and when these updates come, these new features will open new doors for businesses to harness the immense appeal of this augmented-reality phenomenon. And if more AR games prove to be as popular as Pokemon Go, businesses might have an entirely new marketing strategy at their disposal; luckily, these strategies cost virtually nothing to employ.

This article originally appeared on BusinessNewsDaily and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Four Ways to put Pokemon Go to work for your small business