In planning any calendar printing venture, the most obvious fact 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 is just not in the long run user’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the consumer’s fingers near the beginning of school if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a superb timeline for your complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the end user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just need to ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they may want and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for sales is determined by your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or other occasion? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, however keep in mind that you may be better off if you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion should not what you anticipate. Or possibly you’re having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you should enable a minimum of two weeks, and ideally as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their own totally different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you must you’ll want to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar project – you’ll be able to and will begin advertising and marketing through the planning and manufacturing levels of the venture. Nevertheless, should you wait to start advertising until you have the calendars in hand, then you will have to allow not less than a few further weeks, perhaps extra, in your advertising message to achieve the intended audience and encourage them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing venture starts while you hand off all of the photos, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner if you have a particular deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it’s best to probably enable a little bit further time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
