In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious fact 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 isn’t ultimately person’s hands 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 in the person’s palms near the start of faculty if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a good timeline for the entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it should be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to be sure to permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it can probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they may need and issue it in.
If, then again, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more complicated. How much time you want for gross sales depends on your sales technique. Are you selling at a local pageant or other event? If that’s the case, then that provides you a deadline, however understand that you may be higher off if you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event will not be what you count on. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you must permit at least two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you plan to promote, you need to make sure to develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the general duration of the calendar challenge – you possibly can and may begin marketing in the course of the planning and production stages of the project. Nevertheless, when you wait to start advertising until you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow not less than a few additional weeks, possibly more, to your marketing message to reach the supposed viewers and encourage them to purchase.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing venture begins once you hand off all the pictures, text, logos, advertising, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Make sure 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 if you have a selected deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you must in all probability allow slightly additional time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
