In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious truth to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar just isn’t in the end consumer’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the user’s hands near the beginning of school if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a good timeline for your entire challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s arms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just need to ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it should most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they’ll want and issue 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 bit more complicated. How much time you want for sales depends on your sales technique. Are you selling at an area festival or other occasion? If so, then that provides you a deadline, however understand that you will be better off when you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event will not be what you expect. Or possibly you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you must permit at least two weeks, and preferably as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you just plan to promote, you must make sure you develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar mission – you can and should begin marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing levels of the challenge. Nevertheless, in case you wait to start marketing until you could have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow no less than just a few further weeks, maybe extra, for your advertising and marketing message to achieve the intended audience and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing project begins when you hand off all the photos, text, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Ensure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (typically sooner when you have a particular deadline). If you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you must most likely allow a bit further time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
