Have you noticed an invasion of people wandering through your business staring into their smart phones with this glazed look in their eyes? It could be you are a Pokéstop or a Pokémon gym. Now before calling the exterminator to rid yourself of the infestation, read further to understand how being one of these may help your business. Yes, I said help your business.
Pokémon Go is an augmented reality based mobile game app developed by Niantic and released in partnership with The Pokémon Company and Nintendo. Response has been quite amazing with 21 million active users reported in less than a week after its initial release date. Investor reaction has been quite astounding as well bumping share prices significantly.
So how does it work? The game uses your smart phone’s camera and/or GPS to combine the reality of where you are with the fantasy world of Pokémon. Once logged in and setup, your personal aviator shows up on a map with your current location and surroundings. Players check the map to look for a Pokéstop or a Pokémon gym. Each of these locations provide opportunity to gather tools to play the game and strengthen your aviator’s skills. As you physically move and your location changes so do the Pokémon opportunities. Players go around town collecting Pokémon in order to ‘level up.’
Getting back to how this game might help your business, imagine that one of these stops just happened to be within your store or business. It goes unsaid that customer traffic is key to your business. The more visitors the more potential sales and even having your store look busy is likely to draw in additional curious traffic. And look who is playing the game. The original Pokémon card game came out in 1996, with players in the 15-16 year old range.
Now 20 years later they are 35-36 years old with smart phones. This is not a bad demographic to be in most stores. The audience is wider than that as an internet search will show teens, older adults and even celebrities playing the game.
So if you’d like this additional traffic you can apply to make your business a sponsored location ensuring you are a Pokéstop or gym. Then put up a welcome sign to Pokémon Go players and join this latest craze.
RESOURCES:
Since this is an ever-changing technology, currently you can request to become a Pokéstop here: https://support.pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=319928
(This will likely change in future, but you can keep up on the way businesses submit request via the internet.)