In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the most obvious reality to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar just isn’t in the end consumer’s hands before January 1, 2014, they might already have discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s hands close to the beginning of faculty if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a very good timeline for your entire project.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s fingers? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just have to be sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’ll most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure to discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they’ll need and factor it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more complicated. How a lot time you need for gross sales depends upon your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a neighborhood pageant or different event? If that’s the case, then that gives you a deadline, however needless to say you may be better off when you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event aren’t what you count on. Or maybe you are having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it is best to allow at least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you plan to sell, you must remember to develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising does not have to add to the general length of the calendar undertaking – you can and will start advertising and marketing during the planning and production phases of the mission. Nevertheless, should you wait to begin marketing until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit at the very least a couple of extra weeks, perhaps more, for your advertising and marketing message to achieve the intended viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing undertaking starts once you hand off all the photos, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure to 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). In the event you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you need to probably enable a bit of extra time – possibly a month in whole – for manufacturing.
