In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious reality to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is not in the end user’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they might already have discovered 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 school if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a very good timeline for your complete project.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just need to be sure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it will in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they will need and issue it in.
If, then again, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How a lot time you need for sales relies on your sales strategy. Are you selling at a local festival or different event? If that’s the case, then that provides you a deadline, but remember that you’ll be better off should you can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, it is best to allow no less than two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you plan to promote, it is best to you’ll want to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the general period of the calendar mission – you’ll be able to and may start advertising and marketing during the planning and production levels of the mission. However, if you happen to wait to start advertising till you have the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow at the least a number of extra weeks, maybe extra, for your marketing message to achieve the intended audience and motivate them to buy.
The production section of a calendar printing project starts whenever you hand off all the pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Make sure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (generally sooner if you have a particular deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you should probably permit somewhat extra time – perhaps a month in whole – for production.
