The Pokemon Go buzz in figures
No one could miss the new tsunami of the mobile app: Pokémon Go. With revenue of $35 million in less than two weeks, Nintendo’s stock market value doubled in one week, to the point of surpassing the other Japanese giant, Sony, with 30 million players! With 10 million downloads in less than 7 days, these figures are mind-boggling, and this is only the beginning!
The unexpected side effect for some retailers
At this level, the intervention of the major powers of marketing is crucial to boost the app’s profitability. Many collateral beneficiaries have already emerged. Thus, a café-bar was very surprised to find that its premises had become a Pokémon Gym. The concept of Gyms involves players divided into three teams, the blue, the red and the yellow, and they are accessible almost everywhere in the world. Obviously, belonging to a colorful clan requires your team’s banners to fly over as many Gyms as possible! This is how the bar owner saw attendance explode with all the budding Pokémon trainers who wanted to conquer the Gym. As a result, his turnover was multiplied by eight!
Moreover, Niantic and the Pokémon Company, the creators of the app, and various retailers have already planned to capitalize on this valuable opportunity. Thus, the owner of Inizio pizzeria, located in New York, decided to buy from the Pokéshop a $10 item allowing many Pokémon to be attracted into his restaurant and to progress more quickly in the Pokémon GO game. The result was not long in coming, with a 75% increase in turnover! Let us bet that conversations around the pizzeria tables are very focused on those cute little animals that are Pokémon.
Pokémon Gyms, although having a rather violent connotation with matches where colorful plush toys must battle each other, also allow real interaction between players. Indeed, as we mentioned earlier, many players gather at the foot of the Gyms in order to victoriously raise their team’s flag.
But what is the connection between the Pokémon Go game and inbound marketing?
Well, this global phenomenon is indeed a very concrete illustration of our profession. Here is the demonstration for riding this wave.
- Attract your customers: the example of the owner of Inizio pizzeria is telling. By offering the possibility of catching Pokémon, he increased his number of customers. The lesson to remember: creating rich content tailored to your customer will allow you to attract more visitors to your site who are already interested in what you offer
- Adapt your communication: in this case, the typical profile of a Pokémon Go user is already very specific. As a result, some shops see no point in adopting the app, booksellers for example. However, all retailers have something to gain by offering benefits or experiences specific to the different types of profiles interested in the subject.
- Create interaction with your audience: any action around this app will delight fans! So take advantage of collective enthusiasm around a product, a topic acclaimed by your audience, to engage with it and create a bond. You can reinforce this through contests, surprise gifts… You will then gain the full attention of your audience and valuable word of mouth for your brand image.
- Know your prospects and their motivations: while some managed to capitalize on the Pokemon Go opportunity wisely, others fell short. Understanding how the app works, and therefore the objective and motivation of your prospects, is the best way to later offer them the most effective communication possible.
How to do business easily with the Pokemon Go app, a QR code, WiFi and a Marketing Automation strategy
Let us think together, if you will, about an alternative and utopian application of Pokemon Go in a marketing automation context: let us immerse ourselves in the shoes and mind of a bar/café owner wishing to ride the Pokemon Go wave; we decide to implement an action plan to increase our turnover based on a transposition of activities inherent to digital into real life through marketing automation.
Here are the different actions we could put in place, in line with the process inherent to marketing automation:
- Lead generation: The first step is therefore to attract new customers into your bar: for this, several actions are possible: we provide access to free WiFi: the customer comes in and finds a QR Code that they can scan; they then arrive at an Automation form asking for their name and email so they can identify themselves and connect to the WiFi. Afterwards, we offer them the possibility of using a lure to attract Pokémon!
- Identify your customers: Get to know your customers: we provide a blackboard where players can write down their best Pokémon and the team they belong to: this corresponds to segmentation where you can create events according to the typical profiles thus created.
- Build loyalty: Now that your customers have come once, it would be wise to bring them back! And what could be better and more effective than a marketing automation campaign! Create happenings, Pokémon hunts, themed evenings, etc… and keep your customers informed automatically thanks to the different scenarios and campaigns you have set up..
- Nurture customers: This is the logical continuation of our marketing automation campaign: keep your customers informed about the events you organize, all your happenings and possibly your promotions for players!
- Reactivate your customer database: Offer specific contests for your most loyal customers! Offer them lures to activate whenever they want, they come and request activation of the Pokémon lure to give them the most effective hunt possible (and hunting makes you thirsty!)
