New Meaning of Double Opt in

Papa John's has been aggressive in leveraging the internet and technology in general to separate itself from the other pizza giants and to add other sales channels. So I wasn't surprised to read about them using Facebook for a promotion.

The promotion is simple and smart. Become a fan of Papa John's on Facebook and you get a code for a free medium pizza. Of course, the trade off is they are going to communicate with you on Facebook so they get another direct channel to interact. Sounds like a win-win.

After I received the update on Facebook, I was told to visit a website and I would get an email with the code. Of course, I had to provide my email address to get the code. There was no mention of "by providing your email address, you are opting in for future communications from Papa John's" as there should be since surely they are using this to build their email list.

Assuming I am right, this is an interesting (if imperfect) way to get 2 opt ins (hence the title of this blog post) - one on Facebook and one via email marketing.

I like the approach in using the email/social media angles to build your databases and offering up unique and valuable offers/content to unique audiences.

For more on email marketing and social media in the restaurant industry, BrightWave Marketing client Ted's Montana Grill was featured today by DM News in a story titled "Ted's Montana Grill mixes e-mail with social media"