In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the most obvious truth to concentrate 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 not ultimately consumer’s palms 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 in the user’s arms near the beginning of school if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a great timeline for all the project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s arms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it ought to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply must make sure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it will in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they will want and issue it in.
If, then again, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more complicated. How a lot time you want for sales depends upon your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or other occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however take into account that you may be higher off should you can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are usually not what you anticipate. Or perhaps you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to enable a minimum of two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you should make sure to develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general length of the calendar venture – you can and may begin marketing through the planning and manufacturing levels of the undertaking. However, in the event you wait to start out marketing until you may have the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow at the least a few extra weeks, possibly extra, for your marketing message to achieve the meant viewers and encourage them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge starts while you hand off the entire pictures, text, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you discuss 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). Should you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you should in all probability permit somewhat extra time – maybe a month in whole – for production.
