In planning any calendar printing venture, the most obvious truth to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar will not be ultimately user’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they could already have discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the user’s fingers near the start of faculty if it’s going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a good timeline for your entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip person’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you’re mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply must be sure to allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they are going to need and factor it in.
If, however, 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 need for sales is dependent upon your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a local competition or other event? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, however keep in mind that you’ll be better off if you happen to can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are usually not what you count on. Or perhaps you might be having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to permit at the least two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own totally different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it’s best to you’ll want to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general length of the calendar project – you’ll be able to and may start advertising and marketing through the planning and production stages of the mission. Nevertheless, when you wait to start out advertising until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow not less than just a few further weeks, perhaps more, for your marketing message to reach the meant audience and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing mission begins while you hand off the entire photos, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Make sure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (generally sooner you probably have a specific deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to in all probability allow a little extra time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
