Weekly Am/Pm Checklist

In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious truth 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 is just not ultimately consumer’s hands before January 1, 2014, they might already have discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the consumer’s fingers close to the start of college if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a great timeline for your complete mission.

How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re 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 local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it can in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they are going to want and issue it in.

If, then again, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for sales will depend on your sales technique. Are you selling at an area pageant or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, however understand that you’ll be higher off if you happen to can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you count on. Or possibly you are having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you need to permit at the least two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.

If you print a calendar that you plan to sell, it is best to be sure you develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the overall period of the calendar venture – you can and should begin advertising and marketing through the planning and manufacturing phases of the project. Nevertheless, if you happen to wait to begin advertising till you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow not less than a couple of additional weeks, perhaps more, on your advertising message to achieve the supposed audience and encourage them to buy.

The production section of a calendar printing venture begins if you hand off all of the images, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. 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 finished product. Make sure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you’ve got a specific deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it is best to in all probability permit a little extra time – maybe a month in whole – for manufacturing.