Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere for the last few weeks, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Pokemon Go. As a truly unique form of mobile gaming, the new app has attracted an unbelievable amount of attention as well as an enormous base of players, both children and adults, all over the world. So far, the number of daily active users has already passed one of the world’s largest social networks, Twitter. We’re talking big numbers here.

The game makes use of a concept known as augmented reality. It’s something that has never really been exploited in such a creative way until now. The basic idea is that players wander around with their mobile devices, following real maps, and the app overlays it’s own information on screen. A player might be passing their camera over areas of a street or store and on their display they will find Pokemon characters which they can capture and use to advance within the game.

Whether or not you fully understand how the game works doesn’t really matter. All you really need to know is that it is a mobile game that is played in the real world, not a self-contained virtual world that exists only within the app. This is what attracts so many players, and this is what makes the game something that many brick and mortar business owners can capitalize on. Players will go where the game leads them, and you can take advantage of this.

Find Out If You Are Near A Gym Or Pokestop

There are two types of high profile areas within the game that draw players in groups. Those are gyms, where players battle with one another, and Pokestops, where players can collect special in-game rewards.

If you are lucky enough to be within, or very close, to one of these areas, you can take advantage of the game easily. Simply set up special promotions for players to attract impulse buys. Discounts, special items, whatever you have that might work. Get creative and take advantage of the extra foot traffic.

Although there is no official map of the Pokemon world to tell you where these areas are, there is another app that was developed by the same game company, Niantic, called Ingress. If you install the Ingress app on your phone, you’ll be able to see a map of the Ingress world here. Look for “portals” on the Ingress map. These areas are gyms and Pokestops in Pokemon Go. Of course, if you’ve got strange groups of people standing outside your store staring at their phones all day, this might be an easy indicator as well. Ask these people what they’re doing!

Take Advantage Of In-Game Lures Near Pokestops

Like just about every other mobile app, Pokemon go offers in-app purchases to allow players to advance faster within the game. One of the purchases offered is for packs of lures. Lures increase the regeneration rate for Pokemon in areas around a pokestop within the game. This will, as you might have guessed, attract more players who are on the hunt. Each lure will last for 30 minutes. Businesses in urban areas have reported seeing as many as 50 people show up within minutes after placing one.

Here’s how this works:

To purchase lures, you’ll need to buy some of the in-game currency, Pokecoins. You can get 14,500 Pokecoins for $100. That might sounds a little bit expensive, but that $100 investment will go far.

To purchase lures, tap on the red Pokeball at the bottom of the Pokemon Go HUD. From there tap on “Shop”. In the shop, scroll down to the purple, box-shaped lures. Select how many you want, and then you should be taken to the app store’s payment system. Once you’ve made the purchase, tap on the red Pokeball once more and select “Items” this time. Tap on the purple lure and it will be activated.

To break down the cost here, with 14,500 pokecoins you can buy 21 eight-packs of lures which cost 680 pokecoins each. Using one lure at a time, they will last 84 hours in total. So with your $100 you’ll be luring in players for 84 hours. That works out to roughly $1.20 per hour. Not too bad, eh?

Looking for more tips on using Pokemon Go for marketing? There’s more in part 2!