In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious reality to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar isn’t in the end person’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they might have already got discovered another. 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 start of college if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you timeline for the entire challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just have to be sure to allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or an area mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it should in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Just make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they may want and issue it in.
If, then again, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more difficult. How a lot time you want for sales is dependent upon your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or other event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however understand that you’ll be better off for those who can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you anticipate. Or possibly you might be having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, you must enable not less than two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
For those who print a calendar that you just plan to sell, you should you should definitely develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general duration of the calendar venture – you may and should start advertising and marketing throughout the planning and production levels of the project. Nevertheless, in case you wait to start advertising till you have the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow at least a couple of additional weeks, possibly extra, to your advertising message to succeed in the intended audience and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing undertaking starts when you hand off all the photographs, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Make sure 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 when you have a selected deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you need to in all probability allow somewhat extra time – possibly a month in total – for manufacturing.
