In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious reality to pay attention 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 will not be in the long run user’s arms before January 1, 2014, they could 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 within the consumer’s palms close to the start of school if it will be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a good timeline for all the project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s arms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it would probably be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they are going to need and factor it in.
If, however, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How a lot time you want for sales will depend on your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a local festival or other event? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, however take into account that you will be better off for those who can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event are usually not what you anticipate. Or possibly you are having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you must permit at the least two weeks, and preferably as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it’s best to be sure to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Marketing doesn’t have to add to the overall period of the calendar project – you’ll be able to and may begin advertising through the planning and production phases of the challenge. Nonetheless, if you happen to wait to start out advertising and marketing until you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow at least a couple of extra weeks, maybe extra, for your advertising and marketing message to succeed in the meant viewers and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing mission begins while you hand off all of the photographs, text, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure to talk to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s normally about three weeks (generally sooner if you have a selected deadline). For those who anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you should most likely allow just a little additional time – possibly a month in complete – for production.
