In planning any calendar printing venture, the most obvious reality to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar isn’t in the long run person’s palms earlier than January 1, 2014, they could already have discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the user’s hands close to the start of faculty if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a great timeline for the complete venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must 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’re mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply need to be sure to permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they will want and factor it in.
If, however, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How a lot time you need for gross sales depends upon your sales strategy. Are you promoting at a neighborhood competition or different event? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, however keep in mind that you will be higher off in the event you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you anticipate. Or possibly you’re having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to enable at the very 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.
In the event you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, you need to be sure to develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the general length of the calendar mission – you’ll be able to and should start advertising during the planning and production levels of the challenge. Nevertheless, for those who wait to begin marketing until you may have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at least a number of further weeks, possibly extra, for your advertising message to achieve the intended viewers and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing undertaking starts whenever you hand off all of the images, text, logos, promoting, and so forth. 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 you speak 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 selected deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it is best to most likely allow a little extra time – perhaps a month in whole – for production.
