In planning any calendar printing mission, the obvious fact to pay attention 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 shouldn’t be in the end consumer’s palms before January 1, 2014, they may have already got discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the user’s arms near the start of school if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you an excellent timeline for your entire challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’s going to probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they’ll need and issue it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for gross sales is determined by your sales technique. Are you selling at a local festival or other event? In that case, then that offers you a deadline, however keep in mind that you will be higher off when you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one event are usually not what you anticipate. Or maybe you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, you need to allow no less than two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you plan to sell, you should remember to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have so as to add to the general length of the calendar mission – you can and may begin marketing through the planning and production stages of the challenge. However, in the event you wait to start marketing until you have got the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit not less than a couple of additional weeks, perhaps extra, in your marketing message to achieve the meant audience and motivate them to buy.
The production section of a calendar printing mission begins once you hand off all of the images, text, logos, promoting, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (sometimes sooner if in case you have a specific deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it is best to in all probability allow somewhat additional time – possibly a month in whole – for production.
