Now that’s what I call marketing: TGI Fridays

A while back, we posted a challenge on this site, calling out corporate Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you want to read the entire post, click here, but basically, I wondered why more companies didn’t use their accounts for promotions.

So imagine my excitement when I discovered TGI Friday’s “Fan Woody” promotion. Become fans with the TGIF page (“Woody”), register your email address, and once Woody has a million fans, you get a free burger!

(If you want your free burger, go to www.facebook.com/fanwoody)

What a great promotion. First, Woody already has more than 7oo,ooo friends on Facebook (including me), in the short time this promo has been running. That means they now have more than 700,000 email addresses of people who obviously like Friday’s. And they can interact with them. All for the price of… FREE!

This campaign isn’t costing Friday’s anything, at least not to run on Facebook. There were TV Ads, but Friday’s was going to run TV spot anyway. Those are the advertising equivalent of sunk costs. This just gave them a different message to put on the air.

And let’s not forget that every time someone redeems the coupon, Friday’s is still making money. You go in for a free burger, but you bring three friends, split an appetizer and each order 3 beers. The free burger (food cost, probably less than 5 dollars) earned Friday’s a $40 check.

And now you’re in the email club. And following Friday’s on Twitter. And they are at the top of your mind, so when the college roommates are deciding where to buy their next burger, Friday’s has the leg up on Chiles or Applebees. At least until they create their own online promotion.

We’re waiting Chiles… I want a free Triple Play appetizer…

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