In planning any calendar printing mission, the obvious fact to pay attention 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 end consumer’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the consumer’s arms near the beginning of school if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for the whole undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to ensure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they will want and issue it in.
If, alternatively, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you need for gross sales depends upon your sales technique. Are you selling at a local pageant or different occasion? In that case, then that offers you a deadline, but remember that you will be better off should you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion aren’t what you count on. Or perhaps you might be having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you should permit at least two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it’s best to make sure you develop and implement a stable advertising plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the general period of the calendar project – you’ll be able to and may start advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and manufacturing phases of the venture. However, when you wait to start out advertising and marketing until you might have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow no less than just a few additional weeks, maybe extra, to your marketing message to succeed in the intended audience and motivate them to buy.
The production section of a calendar printing venture begins if you hand off all of the photos, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (typically sooner when you have a specific deadline). For those who anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you must probably allow a bit of further time – possibly a month in whole – for production.
