In planning any calendar printing mission, the obvious truth 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 will not be ultimately person’s hands before January 1, 2014, they might have already got discovered an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the consumer’s palms close to the start of college if it’s going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for the whole project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just must ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they are going to want and issue it in.
If, however, you propose 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 much time you need for gross sales depends upon your gross sales strategy. Are you promoting at an area competition or different event? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, but keep in mind that you’ll be better off in the event you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion usually are not what you expect. Or perhaps you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you should enable no less than two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, you need to make sure you develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the overall period of the calendar mission – you can and will begin advertising and marketing during the planning and production levels of the venture. However, when you wait to start advertising and marketing till you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit no less than a couple of further weeks, perhaps extra, on your advertising message to reach the supposed audience and inspire them to purchase.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing project begins when you hand off all the pictures, text, logos, promoting, etc. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (typically sooner you probably have a specific deadline). If you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you need to in all probability permit slightly additional time – possibly a month in whole – for manufacturing.
