Inflection Points and Seasonality

There's a place along the California coast where Elephant Sea Lions gather to breed, raise children, bark at each other, establish dominance, and generally lay around.

They follow the same pattern, every year.

Many of your customers follow the same pattern, every year. I analyze the patterns all the time. So many of you have customers marooned on Christmas purchases ... they buy every year between November 20 and December 20. That's it. This means there are two key inflection points worth thinking about ... marketing to this specific customer beginning October 1 each year, and then having your Analytics team identify customers in this segment who purchase in Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct  because those customers experience a true inflection point (new seasonal purchase), and will behave differently as a consequence.