In planning any calendar printing challenge, the most obvious reality to concentrate 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 shouldn’t be in the long run person’s arms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the person’s hands near the beginning of college if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you an excellent timeline for the entire mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the end user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it should be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just need to ensure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they are going to want and issue it in.
If, however, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more difficult. How much time you need for gross sales depends on your sales strategy. Are you promoting at an area festival or different event? If that’s the case, then that provides you a deadline, but keep in mind that you may be better off if you happen to can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you expect. Or perhaps you are having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to permit at least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, you need to be sure you develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the general length of the calendar project – you’ll be able to and may start advertising during the planning and production stages of the undertaking. However, when you wait to start marketing till you have the calendars in hand, then you have to to permit no less than just a few additional weeks, possibly extra, on your advertising and marketing message to achieve the intended viewers and inspire them to buy.
The production part of a calendar printing undertaking begins while you hand off all of the pictures, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Make sure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s normally 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 may be proofing by committee, then it is best to probably enable somewhat additional time – perhaps a month in total – for manufacturing.
