In planning any calendar printing project, the obvious truth to pay attention to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar is just not in the long run consumer’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the person’s hands close to the beginning of school if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for all the mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip person’s hands? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply must be sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it can in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they are going to need and factor it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and promote 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 will depend on your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or other event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but needless to say you’ll be higher off if you can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion will not be what you expect. Or possibly you might be having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it is best to allow at the least two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, you should remember to develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the overall length of the calendar challenge – you can and should start advertising and marketing during the planning and production stages of the venture. However, in the event you wait to start marketing until you may have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit at the very least a number of further weeks, maybe more, in your advertising and marketing message to succeed in the supposed audience and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge starts once you hand off all of the pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (typically sooner if you have a specific deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you should probably permit somewhat extra time – perhaps a month in total – for manufacturing.
