In planning any calendar printing mission, the most obvious reality 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 isn’t in the long run person’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they may have already got found an alternative. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the user’s fingers near the start of school if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a good timeline for all the project.
How are you getting your calendars into the top person’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it needs to be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you’re mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you just need to be sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply be sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they may need and issue it in.
If, then again, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How much time you need for gross sales depends on your sales technique. Are you promoting at a neighborhood competition or other event? If that’s the case, then that provides you a deadline, but remember the fact that you may be higher off for those who can sell at a number of occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event usually are not what you anticipate. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to enable at least two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, it’s best to you should definitely develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising does not have to add to the general duration of the calendar project – you possibly can and should begin advertising through the planning and production stages of the mission. Nevertheless, for those who wait to start advertising and marketing till you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you have to to allow a minimum of a number of extra weeks, perhaps extra, for your advertising message to succeed in the meant viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The production section of a calendar printing mission begins when you hand off all the images, text, logos, promoting, 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 finished product. Ensure 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 (typically sooner in case you have a selected deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then it’s best to in all probability enable a little additional time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
