In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the most obvious fact to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar just isn’t ultimately consumer’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the consumer’s palms near the beginning of school if it’s going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a good timeline for the entire venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just have to be sure to enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it is going to most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they are going to need and issue it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and sell 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 depends upon your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood festival or other occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however remember that you will be better off for those who can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or sales at one event will not be what you count on. Or perhaps you might be having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, you must permit no 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.
In the event you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you should make sure you develop and implement a solid advertising plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the general duration of the calendar challenge – you may and should begin advertising and marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing stages of the mission. Nonetheless, if you wait to begin marketing until you may have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit not less than a couple of extra weeks, maybe more, in your advertising message to succeed in the intended audience and motivate them to purchase.
The production section of a calendar printing challenge starts whenever you hand off all the photos, textual content, logos, promoting, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Make sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner when you’ve got a selected deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you need to most likely enable a little bit additional time – possibly a month in complete – for manufacturing.
