In planning any calendar printing mission, the obvious reality to pay attention to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar will not be in the end consumer’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they may already have discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the consumer’s hands near the start of college if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a very good timeline for your entire mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to ensure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they are going to need and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you want for gross sales is determined by your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at an area festival or different occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however needless to say you may be higher off in the event you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event should not what you anticipate. Or possibly you are having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you must permit no less than two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it’s best to you’ll want to develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the general duration of the calendar mission – you’ll be able to and will begin advertising through the planning and manufacturing phases of the project. Nevertheless, for those who wait to start advertising and marketing until you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit no less than a couple of extra weeks, maybe extra, to your advertising and marketing message to achieve the intended viewers and motivate them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing project starts while you hand off all of the photos, text, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you’ve got a particular deadline). If you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you must in all probability allow somewhat further time – possibly a month in whole – for production.
