In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious reality to pay attention 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 just isn’t ultimately person’s hands before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the consumer’s hands near the start of college if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a superb timeline for the entire undertaking.

How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just must ensure you permit 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’s going to most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Simply ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they are going to want and factor it in.
If, then again, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for sales relies on your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a local competition or different occasion? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, but needless to say you may be higher off for those who can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event will not be what you anticipate. Or perhaps you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to permit at least two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
For those who print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it’s best to make sure you develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Marketing does not have to add to the overall duration of the calendar venture – you may and will start advertising during the planning and production levels of the mission. Nonetheless, when you wait to start advertising till you have got the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit at the least just a few extra weeks, possibly more, for your advertising and marketing message to succeed in the supposed audience and motivate them to purchase.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing project starts if you hand off all of the photos, text, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can 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 long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a specific deadline). When you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you should probably permit slightly additional time – maybe a month in whole – for manufacturing.