In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious fact to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar will not be ultimately user’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they may have already got discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the user’s fingers close to the start of faculty if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a very good timeline for the complete venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? If that’s the 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 might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just have to make sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they may need and issue it in.
If, alternatively, 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 want for sales depends on your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at a local competition or different event? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, but needless to say you will be higher off in the event you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion are usually not what you anticipate. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, you must permit at the very least two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you must make sure to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the general period of the calendar undertaking – you may and should begin advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and production phases of the mission. Nonetheless, in the event you wait to start advertising and marketing until you have the calendars in hand, then you will have to allow at least just a few further weeks, maybe more, for your marketing message to succeed in the intended audience and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing venture begins when you hand off all the photos, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (typically sooner if in case you have a selected deadline). If you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it’s best to probably enable somewhat further time – possibly a month in total – for production.
