In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious reality to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is just not in the long run consumer’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they may have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the person’s fingers near the start of college if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you timeline for your entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s hands? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it ought to be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply have to be sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they may want and factor it in.
If, however, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more difficult. How a lot time you need for sales relies on your sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local pageant or other occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however remember the fact that you may be better off for those who can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion are not what you count on. Or perhaps you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, you must allow at the very least two weeks, and ideally as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you just plan to sell, you need to be sure to develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the overall duration of the calendar challenge – you may and may start advertising and marketing through the planning and manufacturing phases of the mission. However, should you wait to start out advertising and marketing till you could have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow not less than a number of further weeks, perhaps more, for your advertising message to succeed in the supposed viewers and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing undertaking starts when you hand off all the photographs, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Make sure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (generally sooner if in case you have a selected deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it’s best to in all probability allow a little additional time – perhaps a month in total – for manufacturing.
