In planning any calendar printing challenge, the most obvious truth 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 just isn’t in the long run user’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the user’s arms near the beginning of college if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a great timeline for your complete project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it ought to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to make sure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they will want and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for sales relies on your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at an area competition or different occasion? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, but remember that you’ll be higher off if you happen to can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion will not be what you expect. Or possibly you might be having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to allow not less than two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you plan to promote, it’s best to make sure you develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar venture – you possibly can and will begin advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and manufacturing phases of the mission. Nevertheless, if you wait to begin advertising and marketing until you have got the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow a minimum of just a few further weeks, perhaps extra, to your advertising message to reach the intended audience and encourage them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge begins when you hand off the entire images, text, logos, promoting, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s normally about three weeks (generally sooner in case you have a specific deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you need to probably allow a bit extra time – maybe a month in total – for production.
