In planning any calendar printing mission, the most obvious reality to pay attention to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar shouldn’t be in the end consumer’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the user’s palms close to the beginning of faculty if it’s going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a good timeline for the entire venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just need to make sure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’ll probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Just ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they are going to need and issue it in.
If, then again, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for sales depends on your sales technique. Are you selling at a local pageant or other event? If so, then that offers you a deadline, but remember that you will be higher off if you can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event aren’t what you anticipate. Or maybe you’re having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, it is best to enable at the very least two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, it is best to you’ll want to develop and implement a solid advertising plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the overall length of the calendar undertaking – you’ll be able to and will start advertising and marketing throughout the planning and manufacturing phases of the project. However, when you wait to begin advertising until you might have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow a minimum of a few extra weeks, perhaps more, to your marketing message to reach the intended viewers and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing mission starts while you hand off all of the images, textual content, logos, advertising, etc. 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 if in case you have a specific deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then it’s best to in all probability permit somewhat additional time – maybe a month in whole – for manufacturing.
