In planning any calendar printing project, the obvious truth to pay attention 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 not in the end person’s fingers earlier than January 1, 2014, they might already have found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be within the person’s palms close to the beginning of faculty if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a very good timeline for your complete project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s arms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just must be sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Just ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they will want and factor it in.
If, on the other hand, you intend to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more difficult. How a lot time you need for gross sales is determined by your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or other event? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, but remember that you will be better off should you can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are usually not what you anticipate. Or maybe you are having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. In that case, you must allow not less than two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you just plan to sell, it is best to make sure to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general length of the calendar undertaking – you possibly can and should start advertising through the planning and manufacturing phases of the undertaking. Nonetheless, if you happen to wait to start advertising till you could have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit at the least just a few further weeks, perhaps more, for your advertising and marketing message to reach the supposed audience and encourage them to purchase.
The manufacturing section of a calendar printing challenge starts when you hand off the entire photographs, 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 finished product. Be sure to speak 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 when you have a particular deadline). If you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to probably permit just a little additional time – perhaps a month in total – for manufacturing.
