In planning any calendar printing venture, the most obvious reality to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is not in the end person’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the consumer’s fingers near the beginning of college if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you timeline for the complete mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it ought to be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to ensure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should probably be cheaper and easier for you. Just make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they will need and factor it in.
If, then again, 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 complicated. How a lot time you want for gross sales relies on your sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or other occasion? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, however keep in mind that you may be better off if you can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion are usually not what you count on. Or possibly you might be having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you should enable not less than two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you plan to sell, it is best to be sure you develop and implement a solid advertising plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the general period of the calendar mission – you may and should begin advertising through the planning and production phases of the challenge. Nonetheless, in the event you wait to begin advertising until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit a minimum of a couple of additional weeks, maybe more, for your advertising and marketing message to reach the supposed viewers and encourage them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing undertaking starts if you hand off all the pictures, text, logos, promoting, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner when you have a specific deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you must in all probability enable a little further time – possibly a month in total – for manufacturing.
