Seasonal affinity before a Central preview night
Preview nights in Central fill up quickly, and a blanket invite list wastes both champagne and goodwill. Seasonal affinity work starts with last year’s buyers in the categories you are about to emphasise — not with everyone who spent above a round number.
Map guests who repeatedly bought eveningwear against a soft evening capsule; map travellers who bought compact leather goods before long-haul months. Then sequence outreach: first the guests whose history matches the hero categories, then a second wave for adjacent affinities, then a quiet hold for guests who prefer post-drop browsing.
Purchase pattern analysis is the backbone, but the briefing must stay editable. Floor managers will move names for relationship reasons you cannot see in an export. Your job is to give them a defensible first draft and affinity notes they can skim while writing personal messages.
Keep the tracker simple: name, affinity tag, suggested touch window, owner, status. Fancy pipeline software is optional; honesty about who owns each invite is not.