In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious truth 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 just isn’t ultimately person’s hands before January 1, 2014, they may have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the person’s arms near the start of school if it’s going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a great timeline for the entire challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just have to be sure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they are going to want and factor it in.
If, then again, 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 promoting at a neighborhood festival or different occasion? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, however remember the fact that you will be higher off for those who can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event are not what you count on. Or maybe you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you must enable a minimum of two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, it is best to you should definitely develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising does not have to add to the overall length of the calendar venture – you can and may begin advertising throughout the planning and manufacturing phases of the challenge. However, when you wait to begin advertising and marketing till you have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at least just a few extra weeks, perhaps extra, in your advertising and marketing message to reach the intended audience and inspire them to buy.
The production part of a calendar printing challenge begins once you hand off the entire images, textual content, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a selected deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you must probably permit a little further time – maybe a month in complete – for production.
