In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious fact to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar just isn’t in the end person’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s hands close to the start of school if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you an excellent timeline for the complete challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s hands? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply need to be sure to allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it should most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure to discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they are going to need and factor it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more difficult. How much time you want for sales depends upon your sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood festival or other occasion? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, but understand that you’ll be higher off if you happen to can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion will not be what you count on. Or perhaps you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, it is best to permit at the very least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you plan to sell, you need to remember to develop and implement a solid advertising plan. Marketing doesn’t have to add to the overall duration of the calendar mission – you possibly can and should start marketing throughout the planning and production levels of the challenge. Nevertheless, if you wait to start marketing till you may have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit at the very least a few further weeks, possibly extra, for your advertising message to achieve the supposed audience and inspire them to purchase.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing mission begins while you hand off all of the images, textual content, logos, advertising, and so forth. 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 finished product. Make sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner in case you have a specific deadline). For those who anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you need to in all probability enable just a little extra time – maybe a month in total – for manufacturing.
