In planning any calendar printing mission, the obvious reality to pay attention to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar is not in the long run consumer’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they may have already got found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the person’s hands close to the start of faculty if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a great timeline for your complete mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to be sure to allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they are going to want and issue 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 bit more difficult. How much time you want for gross sales is determined by your gross sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local pageant or other occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but keep in mind that you may be higher off should you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event are usually not what you expect. Or maybe you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to allow not less than two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, it is best to you should definitely develop and implement a stable advertising plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general length of the calendar project – you may and may start advertising throughout the planning and manufacturing stages of the challenge. However, if you happen to wait to begin advertising till you will have the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow not less than a couple of extra weeks, possibly more, to your advertising and marketing message to succeed in the intended audience and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing venture starts once you hand off all the photographs, textual content, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (generally sooner if you have a particular deadline). When you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you need to in all probability enable a bit extra time – perhaps a month in whole – for manufacturing.
