In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious truth to pay attention 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 will not be ultimately user’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s hands near the start of faculty if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a good timeline for your complete project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just have to make sure you permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’ll most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they are going to want and issue it in.
If, however, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more complicated. How a lot time you want for gross sales is dependent upon your gross sales technique. Are you selling at an area pageant or different event? If so, then that offers you a deadline, but take into account that you’ll be higher off should you can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you must enable no less than two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you plan to sell, you should make sure to develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the general duration of the calendar project – you may and should begin advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and production stages of the mission. However, in the event you wait to begin advertising till you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit not less than just a few additional weeks, maybe more, to your advertising and marketing message to reach the intended viewers and motivate them to buy.
The production part of a calendar printing venture starts once you hand off all of the images, text, logos, promoting, and so forth. 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. Be sure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a specific deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it is best to most likely allow a bit additional time – maybe a month in complete – for production.
