In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the most obvious fact to pay attention to is that every 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 have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the user’s hands near the beginning of college if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a good timeline for the complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply need to be sure to allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they may want and issue it in.
If, alternatively, you plan 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 is determined by your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a local competition or different event? If so, then that provides you a deadline, however keep in mind that you will be higher off for those who can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event usually are not what you expect. Or perhaps you are 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 ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, it is best to you’ll want to develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the general length of the calendar mission – you may and should begin advertising and marketing during the planning and manufacturing stages of the undertaking. However, in the event you wait to start advertising and marketing till you have got the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit not less than just a few extra weeks, maybe extra, on your marketing message to achieve the intended viewers and motivate them to purchase.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing undertaking begins when you hand off all the images, textual content, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve and then places 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’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner when you’ve got a particular deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it is best to most likely enable a bit of additional time – perhaps a month in total – for manufacturing.
