In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the 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, if your calendar is just not ultimately person’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they might already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s arms near the beginning of school if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a great timeline for your entire venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just have to be sure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they will need and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you need for sales depends on your sales technique. Are you selling at a local pageant or different event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however needless to say you’ll be higher off in case you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion usually are not what you expect. Or perhaps you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you need to allow not less than two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it is best to be sure you develop and implement a solid advertising plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar mission – you can and may start marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing levels of the project. However, when you wait to begin advertising till you will have the calendars in hand, then you will have to allow at the least a couple of further weeks, possibly extra, to your marketing message to achieve the intended audience and inspire them to purchase.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge starts when you hand off all the photographs, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve and then puts 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’s normally about three weeks (generally sooner if you have a particular deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you must most likely permit a little bit further time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
