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5 simple ways to use Pokemon Go to grow your retail business
By Christopher How | Business
Pokemon Go is taking the world by storm with the popular mobile gaming app raking in record number of app downloads in countries that the game has launched in. With the challenges faced by retail businesses, how are retail businesses capitalizing on popular games like Pokemon Go to grow their revenue?
Here are 5 simple ways you can take advantage of the popular game to increase brand awareness, product placement and drive footfall to your retail store.
Use your social media channels to invite players to play in your retail store. You can even consider creating a promotion where players receive a special discount when they show you their Pokemon trainer profile upon purchase.
You can also consider offering free Wi-Fi and charging stations for paying customers. The Pokemon Go app is a massive battery hog so players are constantly need to charge their phones. Use your social media channels and window signages to let people know that they are welcome to play in your store.
Boost your social media engagement by encouraging players to check in while playing in your store. That allows them to tell their friends about your store and hopefully they will also patronise your store too.
Many players like to take photos of the wild pokemons before they attempt to capture them. Reward players who take AR photos of wild pokemons with your brand logo in the photo as well. When their photos go viral on social media, your brand gets noticed as well.
If your retail business is lucky to be near a Poke Stop (or fortunate enough to be one), you can incentivise players with promotions like promising to install a Pokemon Go Lure module at your Poke Stop when someone posts a selfie with your store logo in it, together with your hashtag. This increases social engagement with your brand and keeps your Pokemon-playing customers happy.
Trends like Pokemon Go will come and go very quickly. The biggest challenge for retail business owners is to be able to make snap decisions to capture the trend at its peak and learning to let go when the trend changes.
Do you have other ideas on how you can use Pokemon Go to grow your business? I’d love to hear from you.
Christopher How is a digital marketing specialist helping organisations complement their business strategies with digital marketing techniques since 2006. Currently working in Philips Lighting as Senior Digital Marketing Manager (ASEAN Pacific), Christopher manages the end to end digital marketing from generating leads to converting them into contacts for the sales team. He is also involved in proposing and implementing digital marketing solutions that improve marketing efforts and processes for businesses.