Image via WikipediaI was surfing around and came across a pretty cheesy article about how to use “guerrilla marketing” to market your band. I’m not linking to it because it was 95% worthless –and because the terms guerrilla, viral, street marketing, et al. have been abused beyond the point of recognition. Nobody knows what they mean and nobody uses them correctly anymore (they’re different). –But I digress. Back to the shoddy article that was better targeted for a traveling salesman.

The 5% of the article that was NOT completely ridiculous  was this little piece near the end that encouraged musicians to say thanks the “old fashioned way”. The author, of course, meant sending flowers and candy to say thanks. I immediately thought about an episode of The Office (American version) where they were implementing a new website and the “old schoolers” said that good old fashioned salesmanship was the answer, while the younger crowd sided with the website. -and subsequent antics that followed that involved giving fruit baskets, asking for them back, and sinking a car in a lake. -but I digress again.

Whether it was professional courtesy, authentic gratitude or just a cheap trick, sending a thank you card, fruit basket, candy, flowers, $50k sports cars and prostitutes have long been part of the professional landscape. It should be no different for musicians. Even though this practice has been around since the dawn of the free market economy, it’s still lost on many people… quadruply so in the arts and music scene.

Saying thank you is a must but going above and beyond to show your thanks really makes you stick out in peoples’ minds. A simple box of chocolates, flowers, etc. will not only help you in building relationships, it will also differentiate you from the thousands of others that don’t do anything.