In planning any calendar printing undertaking, 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, if your calendar is not in the long run person’s palms earlier than January 1, 2014, they may have already got found an alternate. 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 college if it’s going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a very good timeline for your entire mission.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it must 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 clients or members; in that case you simply have to be sure to permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about 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 discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot extra time they will need and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, 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 difficult. How a lot time you want for sales depends on your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or other occasion? In that case, then that provides you a deadline, however keep in mind that you’ll be better off when you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you need to enable at least two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it is best to you’ll want to develop and implement a stable advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have to add to the overall duration of the calendar mission – you can and will start marketing in the course of the planning and production stages of the undertaking. However, if you wait to start marketing until you will have the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow at the least just a few further weeks, perhaps extra, on your advertising message to achieve the intended audience and encourage them to purchase.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing project starts whenever you hand off the entire photographs, text, logos, promoting, and so forth. 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 finished product. Make sure you discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s usually about three weeks (generally sooner in case you have a specific deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you must probably enable slightly further time – maybe a month in total – for manufacturing.
