In planning any calendar printing challenge, the most obvious reality to pay attention 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 isn’t ultimately user’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s arms close to the beginning of school if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for your complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to make sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or a local mailhouse handle 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 extra time they may need and factor it in.
If, alternatively, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How much time you want for sales is determined by your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or other event? If so, then that provides you a deadline, but remember that you will be better off in the event you can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event will not be what you expect. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, it’s best to allow at the least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, it’s best to you’ll want to develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the general length of the calendar undertaking – you possibly can and will start advertising in the course of the planning and manufacturing stages of the challenge. However, should you wait to start out advertising and marketing till you may have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow not less than just a few additional weeks, maybe extra, in your advertising message to achieve the meant audience and inspire them to buy.
The production phase of a calendar printing challenge begins if you hand off all of the images, textual content, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (sometimes sooner if in case you have a specific deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely permit somewhat further time – perhaps a month in whole – for production.
