In planning any calendar printing mission, the obvious fact to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is just not in the long run consumer’s palms before January 1, 2014, they may have already got discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the consumer’s arms close to the beginning of faculty if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a very good timeline for the complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s hands? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just have to be sure to enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they may want and factor it in.
If, then again, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you need for gross sales is determined by your sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or other event? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, but keep in mind that you’ll be higher off in the event you can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion will not be what you expect. Or possibly you might be having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to allow not less than two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
For those who print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, it’s best to you should definitely develop and implement a solid advertising and marketing plan. Advertising does not have to add to the general length of the calendar project – you possibly can and should start advertising through the planning and manufacturing levels of the challenge. Nevertheless, in case you wait to begin marketing till you could have the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow at the least a number of additional weeks, perhaps more, for your advertising and marketing message to reach the meant viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The production section of a calendar printing undertaking begins when you hand off the entire photographs, text, logos, promoting, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a particular deadline). If you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely allow slightly additional time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
