In planning any calendar printing mission, the most obvious fact to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar just isn’t in the end consumer’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have discovered an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the user’s hands close to the start of school if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a great timeline for your complete venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it ought to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to be sure to permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it can in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure to discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they are going to want and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you need for gross sales is determined by your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a local festival or different event? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, however keep in mind that you may be higher off should you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion aren’t what you anticipate. Or perhaps you might be having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, you should allow at the very least two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you should make sure to develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the overall duration of the calendar venture – you possibly can and should begin advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and manufacturing stages of the undertaking. Nonetheless, in case you wait to start advertising and marketing till you have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at the very least a couple of additional weeks, maybe extra, to your marketing message to achieve the meant audience and motivate them to buy.
The production section of a calendar printing project begins whenever you hand off all of the photographs, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (generally sooner when you have a particular deadline). If you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely permit just a little further time – perhaps a month in complete – for manufacturing.
