In planning any calendar printing challenge, the most obvious truth to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar isn’t in the end consumer’s fingers before January 1, 2014, they could already have discovered an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the user’s fingers near the start of faculty if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a good timeline for your complete venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the end user’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply must be sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’ll most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they may want and factor it in.
If, however, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for sales depends upon your sales technique. Are you selling at an area competition or different occasion? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, however remember the fact that you’ll be higher off should you can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion usually are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you should permit no less than two weeks, and preferably as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it is best to be sure you develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the general period of the calendar project – you can and may begin advertising in the course of the planning and manufacturing phases of the challenge. Nevertheless, should you wait to begin advertising and marketing till you could have the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow not less than a number of further weeks, maybe extra, to your advertising message to succeed in the meant viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge begins while you hand off all the photos, text, logos, advertising, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (generally sooner when you’ve got a specific deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it’s best to probably permit a little additional time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
