In planning any calendar printing venture, 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 is not ultimately user’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they could have already got discovered an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the consumer’s arms close to the start of school if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you an excellent timeline for the entire venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply must make sure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they may need and factor it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How much time you want for gross sales is dependent upon your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at an area competition or different event? If so, then that offers you a deadline, but remember that you will be better off should you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you count on. Or possibly you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to permit at the very least two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own totally different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you plan to sell, it’s best to remember to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar challenge – you may and should begin marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing stages of the mission. Nonetheless, if you wait to begin marketing till you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow at least just a few further weeks, maybe more, to your advertising message to achieve the intended audience and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge begins while you hand off the entire pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (generally sooner you probably have a particular deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you must most likely permit somewhat extra time – maybe a month in total – for manufacturing.
