In planning any calendar printing project, 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 is just not ultimately user’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the consumer’s fingers close to the start of school if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you an excellent timeline for the complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you’re mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just need to be sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it can probably be cheaper and easier for you. Simply make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they will want and issue it in.
If, then again, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How much time you want for gross sales will depend on your sales technique. Are you promoting at a neighborhood competition or different event? If so, then that provides you a deadline, however understand that you may be better off in the event you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion should not what you count on. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, it is best to enable at the least two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you plan to sell, it is best to be sure to develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Marketing doesn’t have to add to the overall duration of the calendar venture – you may and should begin marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing stages of the project. Nevertheless, in case you wait to start marketing till you could have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit no less than a few extra weeks, perhaps extra, in your advertising message to achieve the intended viewers and encourage them to purchase.
The production part of a calendar printing challenge starts once you hand off all of the images, text, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is often about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you have a specific deadline). When you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you need to in all probability enable somewhat extra time – possibly a month in total – for production.
