In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the most obvious reality to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar isn’t in the end person’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they might have already got 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 close to the beginning of school if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a very good timeline for the complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they are going to want and issue it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you want for gross sales will depend on your sales technique. Are you selling at a local competition or different event? In that case, then that gives you a deadline, however take into account that you may be better off if you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or sales at one event should not what you expect. Or possibly you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to enable a minimum of two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you plan to sell, you should be sure to develop and implement a stable advertising plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar venture – you’ll be able to and should start advertising during the planning and production stages of the undertaking. Nonetheless, in the event you wait to start out marketing till you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow no less than just a few additional weeks, maybe more, to your advertising and marketing message to succeed in the supposed audience and motivate them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing mission begins while you hand off all the images, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a particular deadline). When you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you should probably enable a bit of further time – possibly a month in complete – for manufacturing.
