In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious reality to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar shouldn’t be in the end user’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they might have already got found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s fingers near the beginning of school if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a good timeline for the entire project.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply must ensure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they may want and issue it in.
If, then again, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How much time you want for sales will depend on your sales technique. Are you selling at an area pageant or different event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but remember the fact that you may be better off should you can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event usually are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to permit at least two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
For those who print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it’s best to you’ll want to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have so as to add to the general duration of the calendar undertaking – you’ll be able to and will start marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing stages of the undertaking. Nonetheless, for those who wait to begin advertising and marketing till you could have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at the least a couple of extra weeks, maybe extra, in your advertising message to achieve the meant audience and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing project starts when you hand off all the pictures, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you discuss 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 if you have a particular deadline). For those who anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you must in all probability enable a little bit additional time – possibly a month in complete – for manufacturing.
