Unless you have been vacationing on a remote island this past couple weeks, you have most likely heard a few things about the latest app craze Pokemon Go. What you may or may not have heard, is how creative community banks and local businesses are leveraging this app mania to increase their traffic and tap into amazing social media reach.
First, let’s start with what is Pokemon Go.
It is an app based on the wildly successful Pokemon games, trading cards, and characters that have been around since 1996.
Pokemon Go is a free to play augmented reality mobile game, which allows users to capture, battle, and train virtual creatures who appear on the device as if they are really in the world with you. Here’s me catching one in our HT Mobile offices as I wrote this:
In order to use it, players have to actually walk around, which has led to lots of young people actually moving around their town to catch characters and go to Pokemon stops and ‘gyms’ as they call them.
This has been great, and many folks are praising the app for getting people out and moving. I can say anecdotally that I have never seen so many young people walking around the downtown setting where our headquarters are.
What a wonderful thing for creative small businesses to leverage. Here are some fun examples we have seen.
A small coffee shop in our town is offering 10% off for whoever has the Pokemon ‘gym’.
Citizens Bank of Edmond, and their great social team led by their CEO Jill Castilla and Ann Chen, did a great job this weekend leveraging their Twitter reach to incorporate Pokemon Go into their towns’ annual Heard on Hurd gathering.
With the app you can drop what are called Pokestop Lures. According to Inc magazine throwing out a few lures only costs about $1.19 per hour. A great deal for increased traffic and engagement.
The Lures are a microtransaction and create a 30 minute influx of characters to catch. Here are some sample tweets from this weekend at #Heardonhurd.
What ways can your bank leverage this latest craze to get folks coming in to see you and your team?
First, find out if you are a gym or pokestop. If you are, leverage this on your social channels. Take screen shots, share the news with hashtags, and have some fun.
If you are not, you can request to be one here: https://support.pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=319928
Second, if you are near a Pokestop, throw out a few Lures…… why not?
Third, if you are a gym, give away a custom Gym badge, share who has the gym on socials or on a poster in the branch, and get social with it all.
Lastly, don’t overthink it and don’t wait while you plan a Pokemon Go strategy.
As fast as this craze has come, it will disappear so just jump on it and give it a whirl.
For great “Think on your feet” marketing ideas, such as capitalizing on Pokemon Go, join our friend, Eric Cook, this Thursday at 3pm est for this weeks Banker Education Series, register here!
