Pokemon Go Is Driving Insane Amounts of Sales at Small, Local Businesses. Here's How It Works

This article was written by Walter Chen and first published at Inc.com

The speed at which Pokemon Go has spread is unprecedented. Less than a week after launch, this augmented reality mobile exploration game has been installed on twice as many phones as Tinder, it has double the engagement of Snapchat, and it is eclipsing Twitter in its percentage of daily active users.

People are spending so much time journeying around looking for Pokemon that getting sore legs from playing for hours on end has practically become its own meme. Smart businesses have caught on too. As Pokemon Go users traverse their towns in search of Pokemon, local stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and other businesses are capitalizing on this massive opportunity, driving huge amounts of foot traffic and conversions both with simple in-app purchases and creative marketing campaigns. To start turning the ambulating gamers around you into your new best customers, all you need is to know how to play the game. Here's how:

1. Find Out if Your Business Is a Gym or PokeStop

What makes Pokemon Go different from many other games is that it doesn't keep people shut up in their rooms. The game runs off an augmented reality HUD, or heads-up display, of the real world. Players' avatars explore with them as they catch Pokemon, collect rewards from PokeStops, battle other users at Gyms, and team up to defend their territory. Figuring out whether your business is a PokeStop or Gym is the first thing you should do. PokeStops and Gyms attract foot traffic without any effort-players flock to them for rewards and to battle other players-and they can be leveraged for massive sales if you know how.

There is no official Niantic map that lists all the PokeStop and Gym locations yet. One workaround is to use the online map of portals created over the last three years for the game "Ingress," also developed by Niantic, which maps virtually 1:1 with Pokemon Go's PokeStops and Gyms. Check out the map here after you install the Ingress app on your phone and sign in (you can use a Google account, and it only takes about a minute to set up). Once you have it set up, you'll be treated to a searchable world map of different "portals"-each one being either a PokeStop or a Gym in Pokemon Go.

2. Sit Back, Throw Down a Lure, and Enjoy the Show

Pokemon Go offers a range of in-app purchases. The one that is most important for your small business is Lures.

Lures increase the rate of Pokemon generation in the area around the PokeStop where they're placed for one half hour. That may not sound that powerful, but Pokemon arescarcer than you think. Luring is an insanely powerful tool that you really have to see to believe. Here's a sample of the comments from some recent Reddit threads on thesubject:

We did this last night (college town), and within minutes of dropping the lure, 30 people walked in. Hoooly s#&@.

I own a pizzeria that's a Pokestop and I literally did this all day. I had a ton of kids and adults (mostly adults) come in for a slice of pizza and a drink until the lure ran out.

What's even more incredible is just how affordable luring is. Let's do the math. With $100 netting you 14,500 Pokecoins and an eight-pack of Lures costing 680 Pokecoins:

14,500 Pokecoins / 680 = 21 eight-packs of lures
(21 * 8)/2 = 84 hours
$100/84 hours = $1.19 per hour

All you have to do is:

• Tap the red Pokeball at the bottom of your HUD
• Tap "Shop"
• Scroll down and tap the purple, box-shaped Lures to purchase. You'll re-direct to your app store's payment system
• Once back in-app, tap the red Pokeball again, then tap "Items"
• Tap the purple Lure to activate!

For a little more than a dollar an hour, you can bring virtually guaranteed crowds to your business. The ROI here is ridiculous, so if your business is anywhere near a PokeStop, this is something you absolutely have to try.

Capitalize on Your Business Being Near a Pokemon Gym

Gyms are a separate kind of animal entirely from PokeStops. You can't put down Lures, but you don't have to either, because users are converging on Gyms day and night to face off with other users and "take control" of the gym for either team Mystic, Valor, or Instinct. To see if your business is near a gym, you can check the Ingress map, or just open Pokemon Go on your phone and look for the tall structures with little Pokemon near the top. They're not hard to spot-they're the biggest structures on the in-game map. Capitalizing on your proximity to a gym is more about creative marketing in real life than anything else. Here are some ideas for ways to engage with the droves of people standing near your business with their eyes glued to their phones:

• Giveaways: Order Pokemon Gym badges from a supplier that can customize them for your business. A quick Google search of the keywords "Pokemon Gym badge" and "custom" should get you what you need.
• Keep score: Put up a sandwich board announcing which team is currently in control of your Gym, and then offer a discount to members of that team! Don't worry about staying updated on which team is winning-just ask those who are participating in the promotion to inform you when the gym has changed hands.
• Get social: Take in-game screenshots and post them on the social-media platforms where you're active. Use hashtags like #pokemongo and #pokemon to get the message out to your potential new customers.

If you're nowhere near either a PokeStop or a Gym, that just means you have to get a little more creative.

3. Go Where the Pokemon Roam

Once you know the basics of how Pokemon Go works, you don't actually need to be near a PokeStop or a Gym to capitalize on the traffic they can create.

Take Your Business on the Road

One way to make your business a part of the Pokemon Go phenomenon is to get mobile and find a spot from which to orchestrate the Lure or Gym strategies. If you're a fashion retailer, maybe this means loading up a van with some of your latest vintage finds. If you're a restaurant, maybe this means going to the park and setting up a barbecue. It's summertime, so get creative.

Since Pokemon are everywhere, you want to go where you have the best chance of finding success. Take advantage of places where you have clusters of PokeStops. If there are three PokeStops on the same block, as is happening fairly often in larger cities, then park yourself in the middle of them and lay down three Lures at the same time. It's the same effect as if you were laying down one-just multiplied by three. Before you know it, you'll have a serious crowd on your hands.

Promote Your Local Pokemon on Social Media

Even if your business is nowhere near a PokeStop or a Gym, you're still going to have Pokemon. One way to get people excited about visiting your business is to get on social media and show off the valuable or rare Pokemon popping up in your area. To know what to look for, a Reddit user has created a handy rarity chart. You could hire a member of your staff to sit on Pokemon Go all day, lay down Incense (an in-game purchase similar to a Lure, but which only gives effects to the person who triggered it), and take screenshots of the Pokemon they capture. A better option, though, might be to incentivize play on the part of your customers.

Consider running it like a referral program:

• Tell users you'll pay for their Incense in return for some screenshots of any rare Pokemon that pop up in the vicinity of your shop.
• Have them upload the picture and tag you on social media, so that their followers know about you too.
• Promote the fact that you're rewarding users who find rare Pokemon at your business.

Do this right, and you could turn your store into a viral destination.

Advertise Your Pokemon on Facebook

If you don't already have a decent-sized following on social media, or if you're looking to drive an even greater amount of traffic, then Facebook advertising is your best bet. By creating a Facebook ad targeted only inside the geographical radius of your choice, you could spread the word about your local Pokemon only to those people liable to actually stop into your store.

The vanilla Facebook advertising interface can be hard to use, so check out one of the Facebook ad managers out there if you want help. AdEspresso, one such tool, makes it easy to set whatever targeting criteria you want, whether that's geographic (one mile around your business), demographic (ages 16 to 26), or interest-based (they "like" Pokemon Go on Facebook).

Pokemon Go and Start Marketing Your Local Business Right Now

The naysayers inside your organization will say the same things people say whenever there's a big paradigm shift. "This is a fad," they'll say. And that could be true. People, of course, said the same thing about the original Pokemon game.

The more salient point here is that no marketing channel is evergreen, but businesses that want to win have to keep one eye open for these big shifts-and they have to capitalize on them when it's time. With Pokemon Go, businesses have an unprecedented opportunity to create strong emotional bonds with new customers, and for very little money. Even if Pokemon Go isn't as powerful a tool for driving sales six months or a year from now, the customers that you delight today are going to remember you tomorrow.

Photo credit: Yoshikazu TAKADA via VisualHunt / CC BY