In planning any calendar printing project, 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 is not ultimately consumer’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they may have already got found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the user’s arms near the start of college if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for the complete venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply need to be sure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’ll in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they are going to want and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, 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 much time you need for gross sales will depend on your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a local festival or different event? If so, then that provides you a deadline, but remember the fact that you’ll be higher off in case you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event should not what you count on. Or maybe you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it’s best to allow at least two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, you should remember to develop and implement a stable marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the general length of the calendar venture – you may and may start advertising and marketing during the planning and manufacturing stages of the venture. However, in the event you wait to start advertising until you will have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow at the very least a number of additional weeks, maybe extra, for your advertising message to achieve the meant audience and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge begins if you hand off the entire images, textual content, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner in case you have a particular deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely allow somewhat additional time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
