In planning any calendar printing project, 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 will not be ultimately user’s arms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the consumer’s palms close to the start of college if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you an excellent timeline for your entire project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it should be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply need to ensure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it will probably be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure to discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they will need and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more complicated. How a lot time you want for gross sales depends on your sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or different occasion? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, but understand that you may be higher off for those who can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion should not what you anticipate. Or maybe you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it’s best to permit at the least two weeks, and ideally as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, you must be sure you develop and implement a stable marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the overall duration of the calendar project – you may and may begin advertising in the course of the planning and manufacturing phases of the venture. Nonetheless, in the event you wait to begin advertising until you have the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit not less than just a few additional weeks, maybe more, on your advertising and marketing message to succeed in the meant viewers and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge starts when you hand off the entire photographs, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you talk 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 when you have a selected deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely allow a bit of extra time – possibly a month in complete – for manufacturing.
