In planning any calendar printing venture, 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, if your calendar isn’t in the long run user’s palms earlier than January 1, 2014, they may have already got discovered 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 beginning of faculty if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a very good timeline for the entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s palms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to make sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it is going to probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they will need and factor it in.
If, however, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you want for sales depends upon your sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local festival or different event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but needless to say you will be higher off in the event you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event usually are not what you expect. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you must allow a minimum of two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it’s best to be sure you develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the overall length of the calendar venture – you possibly can and should begin advertising and marketing through the planning and production levels of the challenge. Nonetheless, if you happen to wait to start marketing until you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you will have to allow no less than a number of further weeks, maybe extra, on your advertising message to reach the intended viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The production section of a calendar printing mission begins once you hand off all the pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. 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 to discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (typically sooner when you’ve got a selected deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it is best to in all probability permit a bit additional time – possibly a month in whole – for manufacturing.
