In planning any calendar printing project, the obvious truth to pay attention 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 long run person’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the consumer’s arms near the beginning of faculty if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you timeline for the entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’s hands? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just need to ensure you permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would probably be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they are going to want and issue it in.
If, however, 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 much time you need for sales is determined by your gross sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local pageant or different event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but remember the fact that you will be better off should you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion are not what you expect. Or possibly you are having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to enable at the least two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you just plan to sell, you should make sure you develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar project – you possibly can and will start advertising and marketing during the planning and production levels of the venture. Nevertheless, if you wait to begin advertising and marketing till you’ve the calendars in hand, then you will need to permit at the very least a couple of further weeks, possibly extra, on your marketing message to reach the supposed audience and inspire them to buy.
The production part of a calendar printing project begins once you hand off the entire photographs, text, 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 finished product. Be sure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s normally about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a particular deadline). When you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely allow slightly additional time – possibly a month in whole – for manufacturing.
