In planning any calendar printing mission, the obvious fact to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar shouldn’t be in the end user’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the consumer’s fingers close to the start of school if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you timeline for all the challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply have to be sure to allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they may need and factor it in.
If, however, 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 difficult. How a lot time you want for gross sales relies on your sales strategy. Are you promoting at an area competition or other event? If so, then that offers you a deadline, however remember the fact that you may be better off if you can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one event usually are not what you anticipate. Or maybe you might be having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you need to enable a minimum of two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you need to be sure you develop and implement a stable advertising plan. Advertising doesn’t have to add to the overall period of the calendar project – you possibly can and will begin advertising through the planning and production levels of the project. Nevertheless, when you wait to start out advertising until you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit a minimum of a few additional weeks, perhaps more, on your advertising and marketing message to achieve the meant audience and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge begins whenever you hand off the entire images, textual content, logos, promoting, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve and then puts 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 normally about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a specific deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you need to most likely enable a little further time – maybe a month in total – for manufacturing.
