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 the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar is just not in the end consumer’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could already have found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s arms close to the beginning of college if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you an excellent timeline for the complete challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to be sure to allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they may need and factor it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How much time you want for gross sales depends upon your sales technique. Are you promoting at a local festival or different occasion? If so, then that provides you a deadline, but needless to say you’ll be higher off for those who can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion aren’t what you count on. Or maybe you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, you need to allow at the very least two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, it is best to be sure you develop and implement a stable advertising plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar undertaking – you may and may begin advertising and marketing during the planning and manufacturing levels of the project. However, should you wait to begin marketing till you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit not less than a few additional weeks, maybe more, on your advertising and marketing message to achieve the intended audience and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing venture starts when you hand off all the photos, textual content, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure to talk 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). Should you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you need to most likely permit a bit additional time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
