In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious truth to concentrate 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 will not be ultimately person’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s palms near the start of faculty if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a good timeline for the whole project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it ought to be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just need to make sure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it can probably be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure to discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they’ll need and factor it in.
If, then again, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How much time you want for sales relies on your sales technique. Are you selling at an area pageant or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, but remember that you’ll be higher off should you can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion are not what you anticipate. Or maybe you’re having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If that’s the case, you should permit at the very least two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, it is best to make sure to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising doesn’t have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar mission – you possibly can and may begin marketing throughout the planning and production phases of the mission. However, in case you wait to begin advertising and marketing till you have the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow at the least a few extra weeks, possibly more, for your marketing message to reach the meant viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The production part of a calendar printing undertaking starts while you hand off the entire photos, text, logos, advertising, and many others. 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. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (generally sooner when you have a specific deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely allow somewhat further time – perhaps a month in total – for manufacturing.
