In planning any calendar printing challenge, 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, if your calendar will not be in the long run consumer’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they may already have discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the consumer’s palms near the beginning of college if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you an excellent timeline for your complete mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it ought to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply need to be sure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it would in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Simply make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they may need and issue it in.
If, then again, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more difficult. How a lot time you need for gross sales depends upon your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a neighborhood competition or different event? If so, then that offers you a deadline, however take into account that you will be higher off should you can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event are usually not what you expect. Or perhaps you are having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you should permit at least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you plan to sell, you must remember to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have so as to add to the general period of the calendar mission – you can and should start advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and production stages of the project. Nonetheless, when you wait to begin advertising till you have the calendars in hand, then you will need to permit at least just a few additional weeks, maybe extra, for your marketing message to succeed in the supposed audience and encourage them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing mission starts whenever you hand off the entire photographs, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner if in case you have a specific deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you should most likely permit just a little extra time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
