In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious fact to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar isn’t in the long run user’s palms before January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the user’s palms near the start of faculty if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you an excellent timeline for your entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s palms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it ought to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply must ensure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it’ll probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they may need and factor it in.
If, then again, 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 a lot time you need for sales will depend on your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at an area competition or different occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but remember that you’ll be better off for those who can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion usually are not what you count on. Or maybe you’re having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you must enable a minimum of two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, it’s best to you’ll want to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have so as to add to the general period of the calendar mission – you may and should start advertising throughout the planning and manufacturing phases of the venture. However, if you happen to wait to begin advertising till you could have the calendars in hand, then you have to to permit at least a few extra weeks, possibly more, on your advertising message to achieve the meant viewers and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge starts while you hand off the entire images, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve after which places 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’s usually about three weeks (generally sooner you probably have a specific deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it is best to probably permit slightly further time – possibly a month in complete – for production.
