How Pokémon GO Revolutionized Local Marketing, if Only for a Glorious, Fleeting Moment
I remember when I first caught wind of Pokémon GO: it was around 11:30 on a fairly unremarkable summer night. One Facebook friend mentioned their frustration at not being able to download the app yet, and another followed; and in a matter of minutes my whole News Feed was chock full of friends going out on a late-night walk to find their neighborhood pocket monsters and compete against other would-be trainers.
Indeed, just 13 hours after the app hit the market, Pokémon GO became the top-grossing app in the U.S., augmenting Nintendo’s value by a whopping $9 million in just five days. It even beat Candy Crush--notifications from which I’m sure almost every one of you have deleted with great annoyance--for the title of Most Popular Mobile Game in U.S. History. And while Niantic, Nintendo, and your Pokédexes reaped astounding rewards, many others pulled in benefits in ways you may not have noticed.
Two of the main highlights of the game are Pokéstops (where a user can collect potions, revives, balls, and more) and Gyms (where a user can defeat other teams in a display of Poké-Athletic prowess). As users continued to play, they noticed that these stops and gyms appeared in locations that had been frequently photographed and geotagged on Google Maps, locations that had large volumes of people checking in via GPS location services--many of which were notable monuments, popular parks and (drumroll, please!) small businesses.
Many savvy business owners took note of the hordes of people, nose-to-smartphone, that started entering their brick-and-mortar location after the July 6th release. Initially, many saw this as somewhat of an annoyance, as potential customers were more preoccupied with the game than they were with the location’s services, but then something interesting happened: Yelp added a filter that allowed users to see which bars, coffee shops, and restaurants in their vicinity served as a stop or a gym. By that point, business owners knew they had a serious opportunity on their hands.
By the time mid-August rolled around, many businesses in reach of these Pokémon landmarks witnessed significant effects. 82% of businesses with nearby Pokémon stops reported an average 9% increase in foot traffic. What’s more, 63% of businesses with nearby stops witnessed an average 12% increase in weekly sales--around $2,000 in gross sales for each reported business. Those who caught on to the increase and invested in lures saw even more. Following this massive success, Niantic started allowing businesses to request PokéStops in their areas.
Unfortunately, due to serious downtime from shoddy servers and a lack of gameplay features from a sluggish release schedule, app usage quickly declined. There’s a good chance you’ve already deleted the app and have given up on completing your Pokédex--after all, it was a little bit of a defeat after that guy in Brooklyn caught ‘em all. So what’s the point of all this? Should I tell you to keep churning out those lures, the stats will turn back around? No; that’s simply not how it works. Still, this little experiment should serve as an important lesson: The most unexpected sources can create surprising opportunities to increase your fanbase and your sales. Keep your eye on what is going on in your community, and most essentially, pay attention to what your audience is telling you. Getting a sneak peek at the game on your patron’s smartphone might wind up being a bigger boon than you’d bargained for.
Ready to market your next event or gather more dedicated fans? Get in touch with the team at Elephant Ear. Give us a call at (321) 537-2649.