Wednesday 17 August 2016

Getting your club ready to play Pokémon GO and improve your health club retention – Part 2

By now, you must have heard of Pokémon GO – the latest app craze to hit our mobiles this summer! But if you haven’t read this quick guide first.

Over the next few articles GG Fit will tell you exactly how you can get your club on board with Pokémon GO and use the game to help your member retention.  First, you will need to get your club ready.  Here’s how…

Locating your nearest PokéStop or PokéGym

First up on your to-do list is locating your local PokéStops or PokéGyms.  It could be that you are one!

PokéStops or PokéGyms are usually places of interest, or landmarks, where people are likely to head to in large groups. The maps locations in Pokémon GO are based around Ingress, Niantic Labs' earlier real world exploration game. Therefore, many of the real world PokéStops can be found on their website, more information on how to obtain this info can be found here.

If you are a PokéGym or PokéStop then the good news is that you won’t need to go too far to find new Pokémon for your clients to catch. However, you will think of real world workouts or activities that you can run at your club and invite members to join in order to up their XP (scores) in the digital world.

If you are not a PokéStop then you will need to think of ways to get to the nearest spots. Once you have pin-pointed these you can then begin to plan a route which you can invite and take your members for walks or runs to catch Pokémon, collect items, and hatch eggs.

Either way, you need make sure you are creative and stay relevant to your industry, including a reasonable level of exercise, to entice members to get fit whilst playing.

You might also, as it is the school holidays, want to include children in your program.  You could organise a kid’s club, so that parents can workout whilst assured in the knowledge their children are being well cared for and having lots of fun.
Over the next few articles we will be sharing ideas on different workouts and exercises that you can do when running your new Pokémon Program.

Getting Equipped

Next, you will need to equip your club and team with the tools and skills necessary to initiate your Pokémon program.  Below are a few pointers for getting your club armed and at the ready:

1. Setup Pokémon GO accounts

Each member of staff that is up for it should get a Pokémon GO account to enable them to run the program.  If you already have a member of staff who plays, you should also consider renaming their Pokémon GO account after your gym or health club. As well as a bit of free publicity, it will help to show members which team to join.

2. Promote and share activities on social media 

You should use your existing social media channels to promote your new Pokémon program to your members and fans or followers. Share details of your club account so that your members can follow and play with you. You could also engage and drive competition on these channels with your members by celebrating members who are high achievers, or sharing Pokémon that you and your members have found.

3. Promote program with posters around your club

Some of your members will have heard of Pokémon GO, but not been convinced to play yet. As well as using social media, you should put up posters within your club, and sharing the new program via email or newsletters too.  You might find you gain a few more followers on your social media channels this way too!

For more ideas and information on membership retention programs check out the other articles in this series, or download our guide to Pokémon GO guide for health clubs. Don’t forget to check back next week for Part 3 providing you with ideas on catching, hatching and exercising for your new Pokémon GO programs.

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