In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious fact 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 in the end person’s arms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s hands near the beginning of faculty if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you timeline for all the project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to be sure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’ll in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they will need and issue it in.
If, then again, you plan 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 a lot time you want for sales depends upon your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or different event? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, but remember that you will be higher off if you happen to can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event will not be what you anticipate. Or maybe you might be having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you should allow not less than two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it is best to you should definitely develop and implement a solid advertising plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar mission – you’ll be able to and may begin advertising through the planning and manufacturing phases of the challenge. However, should you wait to begin advertising and marketing till you might have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at least a couple of further weeks, perhaps extra, in your marketing message to succeed in the meant audience and motivate them to purchase.
The production section of a calendar printing venture begins once you hand off all of the pictures, text, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which 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 long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner if you have a particular deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you must most likely enable somewhat additional time – maybe a month in complete – for manufacturing.