In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious fact to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar will not be in the end user’s arms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the user’s fingers close to the start of faculty if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a superb timeline for your entire mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it ought to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your customers 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 can most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they may want and factor it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you need for gross sales is dependent upon your sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local pageant or different occasion? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, however keep in mind that you may be better off in case you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion will not be what you expect. Or maybe you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to enable a minimum of two weeks, and ideally as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you must you’ll want to develop and implement a stable marketing plan. Advertising does not have to add to the overall duration of the calendar challenge – you’ll be able to and will start marketing through the planning and manufacturing levels of the venture. Nevertheless, in the event you wait to start advertising till you may have the calendars in hand, then you will want to allow at least a couple of further weeks, maybe extra, in your advertising message to succeed in the meant audience and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing project starts if you hand off all the photographs, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Make sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s normally about three weeks (generally sooner if in case you have a selected deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to in all probability enable somewhat additional time – maybe a month in complete – for manufacturing.
