In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious fact to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar is not in the end user’s arms before January 1, 2014, they may have already got found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the person’s fingers near the start of college if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a superb timeline for your entire mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’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 determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just must be sure to permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it can in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they’ll need and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you want for gross sales is determined by your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or other event? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, but keep in mind that you’ll be better off should you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion will not be what you expect. Or perhaps you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you should enable no less than two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it’s best to make sure you develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the overall length of the calendar mission – you’ll be able to and may start advertising during the planning and production levels of the venture. However, if you wait to start advertising and marketing till you could have the calendars in hand, then you will need to permit not less than a couple of further weeks, maybe extra, in your advertising message to reach the intended viewers and motivate them to buy.
The production phase of a calendar printing challenge starts if you hand off the entire images, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to discuss 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 you have a specific deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely permit a bit extra time – possibly a month in total – for production.
