Christmas decorations in August

We just bought a bunch of Christmas lights in the middle of August.

Odd right?

Our old lights are pushing 13 years old so they are inefficient and breaking. We got our use out of them but they were already post-season closeout stock when we bought them.

The new ones are fancy, high efficiency ones and quite reasonably priced.

We bought out of season for two reasons:

1. The off-season prices were more reasonable and inventory is high right now.
2. With the number of people staying home and the potential for a weak travel season, some might try to improve their holiday quality by decorating more at home. Which would make it difficult to find available stock.

After ordering, I started to get some marketing emails from the company that caught my eye. Many of the products mentioned aren't even holiday-related, they are types of outdoor lighting.

Assuming the lights perform well, we might be coming back to this store later on to pick up other things as we finish our backyard. Patio lights, path lights, etc.

There's something to be said about marketing to your customer's interests (e.g. sending email only about holiday products) but you also want to expose them to other product lines you have (e.g. patio lights).

But that requires a strong welcome email campaign. It's not difficult, but it will take effort and testing to get it dialed in.

While the content is up to you, Repeat Customer Insights can help you figure out the timing and see if it's creating repeat buyers. Start with the Customer Purchase Latency report to see how long to make your welcome campaign last and when to insert stronger product pitches.

Eric Davis