Jimmy Johns offers Free Subs through Facebook

It all started at 11:41pm EDT October 28th on Jimmy John’s Facebook page.

This was followed up by another comment on their wall last the 28th at 7:01pm.

“Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches Indy-Metro $1 SUBS Thursday, Oct. 29th 11:00 am – 3:00 pm Buck subs at 16 locations in Brownsburg, Carmel, Indy, Kokomo, Muncie, Nora, & Plainfield Your mom wants you to eat at JJ’s tomorrow!
Yesterday at 7:01pm”

Now, less than 24 hours later, it’s turn Indianapolis upside down.  Large crowds have been spotted across nearly all of Jimmy John’s Indianapolis locations.  I first heard about the offer from my wife at noon today, and through an unofficial survey of my peers I’ve found that most others found out about this via facebook, or via word of mouth from one of their friends.  Surprised by the viral spread of this social media marketing promotion I though I’d dig into things and see what nuggets of wisdom I could find and share.

1. Facebook Usage

- Jimmy Johns has obviously learned that the best way to tell customers about their product isn’t to post it to their web site, or even publish a press release.  They go where their customers are.  At the time of this writing Jimmy Johns has more than 250,000 fans on facebook.  Albeit not all fans reside in the Indianapolis area, however sharing this great promotion across a medium where they already have the the attention (and permission) of their most loyal fans was a great first move.

Navigating over to their web site, you won’t find anything about this promo.  If you ask me, they saved a lot of time not worrying about updating their web site to highlight this offer.  Which brings me to my next point.

2. Great Offer!

- Where else can you go and get lunch for $1.00?! The nature of the offer was so great you had to tell someone about it.  Before I went to lunch I heard about the offer from no less than 3 people.  On my way to lunch I heard about it from another person.  And on my way back into the office i heard about it from another 2 people (who had just visited the nearest Jimmy Johns!).  If your message is good enough, you don’t have to tell everyone about it yourself.  The quality of this promo led others to take the message to other mediums.  JJ’s didn’t release the message to twitter, Youtube, or MySpace at the same time… but the message of the $1 subs made it there.

3. Simple Offer

- By making the offer simple, it was easy for people to redeem.  The only friction JJ’s had to worry about was keeping people patient while waiting in the long lines for their $1 subs.  There weren’t any coupons for the cashiers to worry about, there was no discount code customers needed to remember, and there were no complex terms of use that customers and cashiers had to worry about.  People just needed to show up.  Congratulations, are you human?  Perfect, you’re eligible.

What made this possible?  The brevity of the offer, (it’s only good for 4 hours) and the simplicity of the redemption.

4. Customer Appreciation

- Lastly, by connecting the offer to customer appreciation, Jimmy John’s alienated no one.  They reminded their loyal fan base why they eat at JJ”s, and at the same time gave the 1.2 Million people who live in the Indianapolis metro area a reason to consider eating a JJ’s sub the next time they crave a sandwich.  It was simple, and I have a feeling, we’ll hear about the success in the days to come.