In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious fact to concentrate to is that every calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, in case your calendar will not be in the long run user’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they could have already got found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the person’s hands near the beginning of school if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you timeline for the entire undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip person’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it must be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Just be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they may need and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more complicated. How a lot time you need for gross sales is determined by your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a local pageant or other event? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, but remember that you will be better off if you happen to can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event usually are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you are having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to permit a minimum of two weeks, and ideally as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will want reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you plan to promote, you should be sure you develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Marketing does not have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar undertaking – you can and should begin advertising and marketing during the planning and production stages of the venture. However, for those who wait to start out advertising and marketing until you may have the calendars in hand, then you have to to permit at least a few additional weeks, perhaps extra, to your marketing message to achieve the intended audience and inspire them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing undertaking begins once you hand off all of the photographs, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure to speak 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’ve got a particular deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it’s best to most likely enable slightly further time – maybe a month in total – for manufacturing.
