In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious truth 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 in the long run person’s palms before January 1, 2014, they might have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the user’s arms close to the beginning of faculty if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a great timeline for all the challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’s arms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply have to be sure to permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’ll probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure to discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they are going to want and factor it in.
If, alternatively, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, either 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 sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood festival or other occasion? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, but remember the fact that you may be higher off in case you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you expect. Or maybe you might be having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, it’s best to permit at the least two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you should be sure you develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the general period of the calendar project – you can and will start advertising and marketing through the planning and manufacturing levels of the challenge. Nonetheless, for those who wait to start advertising until you have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit at the least a number of further weeks, possibly more, to your advertising message to reach the meant viewers and inspire them to buy.
The production section of a calendar printing challenge starts when you hand off the entire photographs, text, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you have a particular deadline). If you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to in all probability enable somewhat additional time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
