In planning any calendar printing venture, the obvious reality to pay attention to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is not in the long run person’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have discovered an alternative. 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 beginning of faculty if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a superb timeline for your entire challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply must be sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they will need and factor it in.
If, alternatively, 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 difficult. How a lot time you need for sales is determined by your sales strategy. Are you promoting at an area pageant or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that provides you a deadline, however take into account that you may be better off in the event you can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one event are usually not what you anticipate. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it’s best to enable not less than two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In the event you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you need to you’ll want to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general period of the calendar venture – you may and may start marketing in the course of the planning and manufacturing stages of the venture. However, for those who wait to start advertising and marketing until you will have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit a minimum of just a few additional weeks, maybe extra, on your advertising message to reach the intended audience and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing project begins when you hand off the entire pictures, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings so that you can approve and then places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you 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 in case you have a selected deadline). When you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it is best to probably enable a little bit additional time – perhaps a month in complete – for manufacturing.