Let’s say you get a job working on the concert tour of a well-established country music star. Traditionally, the tour’s marketers use sales promotions such as ticket coupons available at local grocery stores and two-for-one ticket giveaway sweepstakes on local radio stations. The promotions have worked pretty well throughout the years, and the concerts are usually between 90–95% sold out. But what about that last 5%? Your job is to generate some creative, new sales promotion ideas that will fill every seat in every city. Perhaps you could give away free cowboy hats to the first 100 fans at the gate, or book a hot new band as the opening act. “Out of-the-box” thinking can get people excited about attending your event.

“Out-of-the-box” thinking can also create more positive publicity for your game or event. Although sales promotion is different from advertising or public relations, they’re all tied together in the overall marketing plan. For instance, say you’ve designed a new sales promotion for a golf tournament. At each of the 18 holes, you’ll be giving away free samples of different food and beverage products—at hole six, you’ll have lemonade; at hole 12, you’ll have ice cream; and so on. You highlight the promotion in all of your advertisements for the event—on television, on the radio, online, on social media, and in the newspaper. The “buzz” your promotion creates through the media excites people, and you sell more tickets for the tournament.

Another benefit of “out-of-the-box” thinking is that your fresh, new sales promotions will keep you ahead of the competition. And remember, your competition isn’t just the other games or events that your customers could attend, but it’s anything they could do other than spend their time and money with you—even take a nap! Perhaps you run a business at the city park, renting out sport equipment such as Frisbees, footballs, and in-line skates. Lately, it’s been pretty hot outside, and you’ve been losing a lot of business to the movie theater across the street. So, you decide to run a sales promotion called “Chilling in the Park.” With each equipment rental of five dollars or more, customers receive a free ice-cold bottle of water or Gatorade. You feature the promotion in your new round of advertisements, and customers begin to understand that they can have fun and cool off in the park for far less than the cost of movie theater concessions.