In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious truth 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 is not ultimately consumer’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they could already have found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the consumer’s palms close to the start of college if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a very good timeline for the complete challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s palms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply must ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it can most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Simply ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they are going to want and factor it in.
If, then again, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How much time you want for sales depends upon your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a local competition or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that gives you a deadline, but remember the fact that you will be higher off if you happen to can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you anticipate. Or maybe you might be having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to allow at the least two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you plan to promote, you must remember to develop and implement a stable advertising plan. Marketing does not have to add to the overall duration of the calendar undertaking – you can and will start advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and manufacturing phases of the mission. Nonetheless, when you wait to start out advertising until you could have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at least a few further weeks, perhaps more, to your advertising and marketing message to reach the meant audience and inspire them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge starts if you hand off all the photographs, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Make sure you speak 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 you probably have a selected deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it is best to in all probability allow a little additional time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
