In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious fact to pay attention to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar just isn’t in the end person’s fingers before 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 needs to be within the consumer’s palms near the start of school if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a very good timeline for your entire project.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’s fingers? 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 want to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just need to ensure you allow enough 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 would in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they’ll need and factor it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you want for sales will depend on your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a local festival or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that gives you a deadline, however needless to say you will be better off if you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are not what you expect. Or possibly you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you must permit a minimum of two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you just plan to sell, you need to remember to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising does not have to add to the overall period of the calendar project – you possibly can and will start marketing in the course of the planning and production stages of the mission. However, if you wait to begin marketing until you have got the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit at the very least a few additional weeks, possibly more, in your advertising and marketing message to reach the intended audience and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge begins when you hand off the entire photos, text, logos, promoting, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner if in case you have a specific deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it is best to most likely allow a little additional time – possibly a month in total – for manufacturing.
