In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious reality to concentrate 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 will not be ultimately person’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they could already have found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s palms close to the start of college if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a superb timeline for your entire mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to ensure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’ll in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they’ll want and factor it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How a lot time you need for gross sales is determined by your sales strategy. Are you promoting at an area festival or other occasion? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, however needless to say you may be better off if you can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you should enable at the very least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
For those who print a calendar that you plan to promote, you should make sure you develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar mission – you possibly can and may start advertising through the planning and manufacturing stages of the undertaking. Nevertheless, in the event you wait to begin advertising and marketing till you may have the calendars in hand, then you will need to permit at the least a few additional weeks, perhaps extra, to your advertising and marketing message to reach the supposed viewers and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing undertaking begins once you hand off all the photos, text, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (typically sooner when you’ve got a selected deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then it is best to probably enable slightly additional time – maybe a month in total – for manufacturing.
