In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious reality 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 shouldn’t be ultimately person’s palms before January 1, 2014, they might already have found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s palms near the beginning of faculty if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for all the undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply must be sure to enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it can in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Simply ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they’ll need and factor it in.
If, alternatively, 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 depends upon your gross sales strategy. Are you promoting at a neighborhood pageant or other occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however take into account that you may be higher off in the event you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event aren’t what you expect. Or maybe you are having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it is best to enable a minimum of two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you plan to sell, you must remember to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the overall duration of the calendar project – you can and will begin advertising and marketing through the planning and manufacturing stages of the mission. However, in case you wait to start advertising and marketing until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit not less than a number of extra weeks, perhaps more, for your marketing message to reach the intended viewers and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing challenge begins when you hand off all the photos, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (typically sooner you probably have a selected deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you should probably allow slightly further time – possibly a month in complete – for production.