The season winds down, the phone rings less often and gaps appear in the diary. That is the moment when most seasonal businesses simply rest, and rightly so. Except that exactly then you are holding something you did not have all summer: a full, fresh list of the people who came to you.
That list ages faster than you would think. In a year half the names will mean nothing to you and some of the addresses will no longer be current. If you want to use it, September and October are the best moment, not December, when everybody wakes up at once.
A postcard suits this better than an email or a leaflet for one reason: after the season it competes with nothing. The recipient's letterbox is empty, and your card does not look like a marketing campaign, because it arrives at a time when nobody is selling anything.
- After the season you have the most data and the least traffic - the only point in the year when the two coincide.
- November beats December - in December your card disappears into a pile of seasonal greetings.
- This is a thank you, not an offer - what sells is the simple fact that you remember.
- The front is a photo from the summer just gone, the back a few sentences and a word about next year.
- Addresses are gathered during the season, not after it - that is the only work you have to do in advance.
Why this particular moment
A seasonal business lives to an odd rhythm: for three months it has customers and no time, and for nine it has time and few customers. Contact with a guest breaks off at exactly the moment when that guest goes home with the best memories.
After the season the situation reverses. Your head is clear, you have photographs from the summer, you have a list of bookings and you have a reader who still remembers how it was. In six months they will remember less well, and in a year they will be choosing all over again. In short, this is the only window in which the memory is still fresh and you have time to do something with it.
Who actually has a list like that
More businesses than realise it. An address list builds itself in the course of ordinary work, and usually nobody ever tidies it up.
- A hotel, guest house or holiday centre - details from bookings and registration cards.
- A farm stay - often the best list of all, because guests come back year after year.
- A sailing school, diving school or sports camp - details from enrolment forms and consents.
- An equipment hire business - hire agreements with contact details.
- A salon, clinic or seasonal workshop - the customer file or a list of appointments.
How to gather addresses so you can use them later
The simplest method is a card with a single question at check out or at the till: "would you like a card from us after the season?" Short, voluntary, with no small print. Whoever ticks the box is waiting for it; whoever does not would have had no use for it. That one card printed in June gives you a ready list in September and saves you an evening spent copying details out of booking records.
November is remembered better than December
Many owners put contact off until Christmas, because that is when "greetings are expected". It is the worst possible timing. In December the recipient receives a dozen cards at once, all of them saying roughly the same thing, so yours stops standing out.
A card sent earlier lands in an empty letterbox and is read as a gesture rather than a duty on the calendar. There is a practical argument too: families planning holidays start talking about dates long before they book anything. You therefore arrive during the conversation, not after the decision has been made. We described a similar reminder mechanism in our article on material for car repair shops.
What to write so it is not an offer
This is where the difficulty lies. A card after the season works because it does not sell; the moment it starts to, it turns into a leaflet and loses its advantage.
Three things work, and best of all together. First, a thank you for the season written plainly, without a corporate tone. Second, a photograph from the summer just gone on the front, ideally one showing your place in the weather and light the reader remembers. Third, one sentence about the coming season: say when you open and that dates will be available.
The two sides of a postcard work very concretely here. The front reminds the reader where they were, and it is the front that triggers the reaction. The back only has to confirm that you remember: a few sentences, the signature of somebody the guest knows from the desk or the workshop, and your contact details. No price list, no list of facilities, no exclamation marks.
Try a simple test: cover the company name and read the back. If the text could have come from any other business in the area, it is too general. Add one detail that only somebody who stayed with you would know - the name of a room, the dog's name, the view from the terrace. That single sentence turns the card from a mailshot into a message.
A card and a voucher - when that works
A card can carry more than a thank you, but only when that extra does not dominate the text. What works best is a simple code or a note about a discount for next season, valid until a stated date. It need not be large, because that is not the point; the point is a reason to keep the card.
The second option is a separate voucher tucked into an envelope with the card. Splitting the roles is often better: the card says "thank you" and the voucher says "come back". The reader can then keep one and pass the other to a member of the family, which happens often with gifts. How to build such a voucher so it does not end up in the bin is explained in our articles on vouchers in a service business and on how to create a discount card.
How many copies and in what order
Planning a mailing like this is short work, but it follows a fixed sequence.
- Count the addresses you genuinely have - current ones, with consent to be contacted. That is your quantity, not the number of guests over the season.
- Add a margin for cards handed over in person, for mistakes in addresses and for people who sign up later.
- Choose a photograph from the season just gone - your own, not a stock image. The reader should recognise the place, not the styling.
- Write the back before you start designing, and cut it by a third.
- Plan the printing well ahead - autumn also brings the calendar season, so the earlier you decide, the calmer it will be.
It is also worth treating this as a fixed point in the year rather than a one off idea. A second card sent a year later to the same people works harder than the first, because it stops being a coincidence and becomes a habit. Seasonal printed material in restaurants and cafes behaves in much the same way: a steady rhythm counts for more there than one well conceived campaign.
After the season nobody expects to hear from you, and that is precisely why hearing from you makes an impression. A card that arrives when you have nothing to sell is read exactly as it looks: as a thank you from somebody who remembers. And the person who remembers is the one people think of when the next holiday is being planned.
