In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious reality to pay attention 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 isn’t in the long run consumer’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the consumer’s fingers near the start of faculty if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a very good timeline for the entire project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s hands? 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 need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just must make sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should probably be cheaper and easier for you. Simply ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they’ll want and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How a lot time you need for gross sales relies on your sales technique. Are you promoting at a neighborhood pageant or other event? If that’s the case, then that gives you a deadline, however take into account that you may be better off if you happen to can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event usually are not what you anticipate. Or perhaps you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to allow at least two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, you must make sure you develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar venture – you’ll be able to and should begin marketing in the course of the planning and production stages of the undertaking. Nevertheless, in the event you wait to start out advertising and marketing till you may have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit not less than a number of additional weeks, perhaps more, in your advertising message to reach the supposed audience and motivate them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing venture starts when you hand off the entire images, textual content, logos, promoting, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure 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 (generally sooner if in case you have a selected deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it is best to most likely allow a bit of extra time – possibly a month in whole – for manufacturing.
