In planning any calendar printing undertaking, 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, in case your calendar isn’t ultimately person’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found 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 near the beginning of school if it’s going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a very good timeline for the whole undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip person’s palms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you’re mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’ll most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they may need and factor it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for gross sales depends on your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at an area competition or other event? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, but understand that you may be higher off when you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one event usually are not what you anticipate. Or perhaps you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to permit at the very least two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it’s best to be sure to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the general duration of the calendar challenge – you possibly can and will start advertising during the planning and production phases of the undertaking. Nevertheless, if you happen to wait to start advertising and marketing until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow a minimum of just a few additional weeks, possibly more, on your marketing message to succeed in the supposed audience and motivate them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing venture starts when you hand off the entire images, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to talk to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (sometimes sooner if in case you have a selected deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you must in all probability allow a bit extra time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
