When you do things right, it’s amazing what can happen.

Keeping in mind that word of mouth is still the most powerful form of marketing, why don’t more companies focus on giving their customers a reason to be evangelists for their cause? It’s a simple formula: Give the people who already care about your company a bit of incentive to tell their friends about you, and they just might create a viral marketing phenomenon on your behalf. As I keep seeming to repeat in each of my posts (stop selling, you snake!) Tell Ten Friends is based around the principle that if you use this logic, and use some of the available technology online, you can make magic happen for your company, for your brand, and of course for your bottom line.

Let’s recap the events of yesterday: Chris writes a blog. It’s a good one, and it’s about Movie Marketing. Big studio contacts Chris, and empowers him to talk about their upcoming film. Mack takes notice, and is blown away by the vision and cooperation of said studio. He encourages others to spread the word, and we do (We’re not used to that kind of treatment from big business, you see. I’d love to see the number of resulting links from each one of these posts, when the dust has settled on this one).

So now a slew (I counted them. It’s officially a slew) of bloggers are spreading the word on behalf of a studio with a marketing budget big enough to move mountains all on its own. All because they had the good sense to throw a bone to the people most likely to tell the world about them. Mack says it best in his post from today:

“We talk, we spread ideas, and enjoy doing so. We especially love to talk about companies that are smart enough to talk to us. The question your company needs to ask itself is: Why didn’t you give us a reason to talk about you?”

Well said. And this doesn’t just apply to the blogging community. Every company worth its weight in salt knows that it’s more expensive to find new customers than it is to retain existing ones. To the tenth power or so, if I’m not mistaken. So here’s what I suggest…Even out that ratio a bit. Spend a bit of time and effort, and maybe even some cash to empower your existing customer base to tell ten friends about you.

To quote Seth for billionth time (I’ll have to paraphrase in this case, I’ve searched enough urls in this post as it is): Being remarkable doesn’t have to be too difficult. You just need to give people a reason to make a remark about you. It’s really that simple.

Thanks once again to Mack Collier and all of the members of the Viral Community for participating in this shining example of what’s possible when you make the effort, and please the right people.