In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious fact to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar is just not in the end user’s arms before January 1, 2014, they might have already got discovered an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the person’s arms close to the beginning of school if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a superb timeline for all the venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it ought to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just need to be sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should probably be cheaper and easier for you. Just 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 plan to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How much time you want for sales will depend on your gross sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local festival or different event? In that case, then that offers you a deadline, however remember that you will be higher off in case you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion aren’t what you count on. Or possibly you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to allow no less than two weeks, and ideally as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, you should remember to develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general length of the calendar venture – you may and will begin advertising and marketing throughout the planning and production levels of the challenge. Nevertheless, when you wait to begin advertising until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit not less than a number of further weeks, possibly more, to your advertising and marketing message to achieve the intended audience and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge begins when you hand off all of the images, text, logos, advertising, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which puts 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’s often about three weeks (typically sooner when you have a specific deadline). When you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to in all probability permit just a little extra time – maybe a month in whole – for production.
