In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious reality to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is just not in the long run person’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they could already have found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the person’s arms near the start of college if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you an excellent timeline for the entire venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just need to be sure to allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it will in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Just make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they will want and factor it in.
If, then again, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more difficult. How a lot time you want for sales relies on your sales strategy. Are you selling at an area competition or different event? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, but needless to say you will be higher off if you can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event will not be what you anticipate. Or maybe you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you should permit at least two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
For those who print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you need to you should definitely develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar venture – you can and should begin advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and manufacturing stages of the venture. However, for those who wait to begin advertising until you could have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow not less than a couple of extra weeks, maybe extra, on your marketing message to succeed in the meant viewers and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing project begins once you hand off all the photos, textual content, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner when you’ve got a particular deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely permit slightly further time – maybe a month in complete – for production.
