In planning any calendar printing venture, the most obvious truth to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar will not be in the long run consumer’s hands before January 1, 2014, they may have already got discovered an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the consumer’s hands near the start of college if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you an excellent timeline for your entire venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it will probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they are going to need and issue it in.
If, then again, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you want for sales depends on your sales technique. Are you selling at a local competition or other event? In that case, then that offers you a deadline, however remember that you’ll be better off if you happen to can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event should not what you anticipate. Or possibly you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to permit at least two weeks, and preferably as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, you should be sure you develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar challenge – you’ll be able to and should start advertising and marketing throughout the planning and production stages of the venture. However, if you happen to wait to begin advertising until you could have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit a minimum of a couple of additional weeks, possibly more, in your advertising message to succeed in the intended audience and inspire them to buy.
The production phase of a calendar printing venture starts once you hand off all the images, textual content, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to talk 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 when you have a specific deadline). When you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to probably allow somewhat additional time – maybe a month in whole – for manufacturing.
