In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious reality to concentrate 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 consumer’s arms before January 1, 2014, they might already have found an alternate. 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 start of college if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for the complete challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it should be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply must be sure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’ll probably be cheaper and easier for you. Just ensure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they’ll want and issue it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How a lot time you want for sales relies on your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood festival or other occasion? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, however remember that you’ll be better off in the event you can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion usually are not what you count on. Or possibly you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, you must enable at least two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, you must remember to develop and implement a solid marketing plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the general length of the calendar undertaking – you may and may start advertising during the planning and manufacturing stages of the mission. Nonetheless, in case you wait to start marketing till you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow no less than just a few extra weeks, maybe extra, on your advertising message to achieve the intended audience and motivate them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing mission starts when you hand off all the pictures, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is often about three weeks (generally sooner if you 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 in all probability allow a little extra time – perhaps a month in whole – for production.
