In planning any calendar printing project, the obvious reality to pay attention 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 in the long run user’s arms before January 1, 2014, they might already have discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the person’s hands near the beginning of college if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a good timeline for the whole project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they are going to need 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 enterprise, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How a lot time you want for gross sales is dependent upon your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood festival or different occasion? If so, then that provides you a deadline, but remember the fact that you’ll be better off for those who can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event are usually not what you expect. Or maybe you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to enable not less than two weeks, and preferably as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it is best to make sure to develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the overall period of the calendar undertaking – you may and may begin advertising during the planning and production levels of the undertaking. However, if you wait to begin marketing until you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow at the very least a number of additional weeks, maybe extra, for your advertising and marketing message to reach the intended audience and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge starts if you hand off all of the photos, textual content, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to speak 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 in case you have a specific deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you must most likely enable slightly further time – perhaps a month in whole – for production.
