In planning any calendar printing project, the obvious truth to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar isn’t in the long run consumer’s palms earlier than January 1, 2014, they might already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s fingers close to the beginning of school if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a great timeline for the complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it ought to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply have to be sure to allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’ll in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they’ll want and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How a lot time you need for sales is dependent upon your sales strategy. Are you selling at an area competition or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, however keep in mind that you may be higher off should you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are not what you expect. Or maybe you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you need to allow no less than two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
For those who print a calendar that you plan to promote, it’s best to be sure to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the general duration of the calendar project – you can and may start marketing during the planning and manufacturing phases of the venture. Nonetheless, when you wait to begin advertising until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at the least a few additional weeks, possibly extra, for your advertising message to succeed in the supposed audience and inspire them to buy.
The production part of a calendar printing project starts while you hand off the entire pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Make sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s normally about three weeks (typically sooner if in case you have a particular deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you must probably permit slightly extra time – maybe a month in whole – for manufacturing.
