In planning any calendar printing mission, the most obvious reality to concentrate 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 not ultimately consumer’s arms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got discovered an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the consumer’s hands near the start of college if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a great timeline for the complete project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top user’s palms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you’ll need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you’re mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just must be sure to allow sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Just be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they’ll want and issue it in.
If, then again, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How much time you need for sales depends on your sales technique. Are you promoting at an area pageant or other occasion? In that case, then that offers you a deadline, but remember that you may be better off should you can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion usually are not what you anticipate. Or perhaps you are having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, you must permit at least two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own totally different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you just plan to promote, it’s best to remember to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar mission – you possibly can and may begin marketing through the planning and production stages of the undertaking. Nevertheless, in case you wait to begin advertising and marketing until you might have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit no less than a few extra weeks, possibly extra, for your advertising message to achieve the meant audience and encourage them to purchase.
The production part of a calendar printing project starts if you hand off all the pictures, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is often about three weeks (generally sooner you probably have a particular deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it is best to in all probability permit somewhat further time – perhaps a month in complete – for production.
