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, if your calendar isn’t in the end person’s arms earlier than 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 must be in the person’s fingers near the start of college if it’ll be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you a good timeline for the entire venture.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip person’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply need to be sure to enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or a local mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it should most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Simply make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they will need and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more complicated. How much time you need for gross sales depends on your gross sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local pageant or other event? If that’s the case, then that gives you a deadline, however understand that you will be better off should you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event will not be what you count on. Or maybe you’re having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you must enable not less than two weeks, and preferably up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, you must you’ll want to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Marketing does not have to add to the general length of the calendar venture – you possibly can and should begin advertising and marketing through the planning and manufacturing phases of the mission. Nevertheless, in the event you wait to start out advertising and marketing until you have the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow at least just a few additional weeks, possibly more, in your marketing message to reach the meant audience and encourage them to buy.
The production phase of a calendar printing challenge begins while you hand off all of the pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, and many others. 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 completed product. Be sure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (generally sooner you probably have a specific deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it is best to most likely permit somewhat further time – maybe a month in complete – for manufacturing.
