In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious reality 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 shouldn’t be in the long run user’s arms before January 1, 2014, they might 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 user’s palms near the beginning of college if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you timeline for the entire challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply must ensure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to probably be cheaper and easier for you. Simply make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they may need and factor it in.
If, alternatively, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more difficult. How a lot time you need for sales is dependent upon your sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or other occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however remember that you may be higher off if you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event are usually not what you anticipate. Or possibly you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to permit no less than two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it’s best to be sure you develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar venture – you can and may begin marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing phases of the project. Nonetheless, if you happen to wait to start out advertising until you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit no less than a couple of further weeks, maybe extra, to your advertising message to achieve the supposed audience and inspire them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing project begins whenever you hand off all the images, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is often about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you have a particular deadline). If you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to probably allow a little bit extra time – maybe a month in whole – for manufacturing.
