In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious truth to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar is just not in the long run consumer’s arms before January 1, 2014, they might already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s palms near the beginning of school if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you an excellent timeline for the complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s arms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you are mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just have to make sure you allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they may want and factor it in.
If, alternatively, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a little more complicated. How much time you want for gross sales depends upon your gross sales strategy. Are you promoting at a local festival or different event? In that case, then that offers you a deadline, however keep in mind that you’ll be higher off if you happen to can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event are usually not what you count on. Or maybe you’re having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you need to enable at the least two weeks, and ideally 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 print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it’s best to make sure you develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the general period of the calendar project – you may and may start marketing through the planning and production stages of the project. Nevertheless, if you happen to wait to start out advertising and marketing until you might have the calendars in hand, then you will have to allow a minimum of just a few extra weeks, perhaps more, to your advertising message to succeed in the supposed viewers and motivate them to purchase.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing mission starts if you hand off all the images, text, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure to discuss to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s normally about three weeks (typically sooner when you have a particular deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you need to in all probability enable somewhat further time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.