In planning any calendar printing project, the obvious fact to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar will not be in the end consumer’s hands before January 1, 2014, they could already have found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s arms close to the beginning of school if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can give you timeline for the complete project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you’re mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would probably be cheaper and simpler for you. Just make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they’ll want and issue it in.
If, alternatively, you propose 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 gross sales depends on your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at an area pageant or other event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but remember the fact that you’ll be better off if you happen to can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event usually are not what you expect. Or possibly you’re having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, it is best to permit at the least two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own totally different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you just plan to sell, you need to you’ll want to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the general duration of the calendar project – you may and should begin advertising throughout the planning and production levels of the project. Nevertheless, for those who wait to start advertising until you’ve got the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to permit a minimum of a couple of additional weeks, perhaps extra, to your marketing message to succeed in the meant viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The production part of a calendar printing challenge begins whenever you hand off the entire images, text, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork for you to approve and then puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure to talk to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is normally about three weeks (typically sooner in case you have a particular deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you need to probably permit slightly further time – perhaps a month in whole – for production.
