In planning any calendar printing challenge, the most obvious fact to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is just not ultimately user’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they could already have discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the person’s palms near the beginning of faculty if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a great timeline for your entire project.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just need to be sure you enable 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 is going to probably be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they will need and factor it in.
If, then again, you intend 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 much time you want for gross sales depends upon your sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or other occasion? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, but keep in mind that you’ll be better off if you happen to can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are not what you count on. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you must permit a minimum of two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own totally different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it is best to you should definitely develop and implement a stable marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the overall period of the calendar mission – you may and should start advertising during the planning and production levels of the challenge. Nevertheless, should you wait to start advertising and marketing until you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit at the least a few further weeks, maybe more, on your advertising and marketing message to succeed in the supposed audience and motivate them to buy.
The production part of a calendar printing undertaking begins whenever you hand off the entire photos, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you’ve got a selected deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it’s best to probably allow somewhat additional time – possibly a month in total – for production.
