In planning any calendar printing challenge, the most obvious truth to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar will not be in the long run consumer’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they may have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the person’s palms close to the beginning of school if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you timeline for your entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip person’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply must make sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it will most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they may need and issue it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How a lot time you need for sales will depend on your sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or different occasion? If so, then that provides you a deadline, but needless to say you may be higher off for those who can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion aren’t what you anticipate. Or maybe you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you need to allow not less than two weeks, and ideally 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 promote, it’s best to you should definitely develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general duration of the calendar challenge – you can and may start marketing through the planning and manufacturing levels of the project. However, in case you wait to start advertising until you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit at least a number of additional weeks, maybe extra, on your marketing message to succeed in the meant audience and motivate them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing undertaking begins when you hand off the entire photos, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner if you have a specific deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely enable just a little additional time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
