In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious reality to concentrate 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 shouldn’t be ultimately person’s arms before January 1, 2014, they could already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s fingers close to the start of faculty if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a great timeline for all the undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just must make sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’s going to most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure to discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they may need and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you intend 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 need for sales will depend on your sales strategy. Are you selling at an area festival or other event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however remember that you may be better off in the event you can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion will not be what you anticipate. Or maybe you might be having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you must allow at least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you plan to sell, it is best to be sure to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar undertaking – you’ll be able to and will start advertising through the planning and production phases of the project. However, in the event you wait to start advertising and marketing till you have got the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at least just a few extra weeks, maybe more, in your marketing message to reach the meant audience and encourage them to buy.
The production phase of a calendar printing mission begins when you hand off the entire photographs, text, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you talk 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 you probably have a selected deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely allow just a little further time – maybe a month in complete – for manufacturing.
