In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the most obvious fact to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is not in the long run user’s hands before 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 must be in the user’s palms close to the start of school if it is going to be helpful 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 end user’s palms? Are you giving them away? If that’s the case, then it ought to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will have to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just need to be sure you enable sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’s going to in all probability be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they’ll need and factor it in.
If, then again, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How much time you need for sales relies on your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at a neighborhood pageant or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that gives you a deadline, however keep in mind that you will be better off when you can promote at multiple events, in case attendance or sales at one event usually are not what you anticipate. Or possibly you are having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If so, you need to allow at least two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you plan to promote, you need to be sure to develop and implement a strong advertising plan. Marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the overall period of the calendar venture – you can and should start advertising throughout the planning and manufacturing phases of the venture. Nevertheless, when you wait to start out marketing until you will have the calendars in hand, then you will need to permit at least a couple of further weeks, possibly extra, on your marketing message to achieve the intended viewers and encourage them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing project begins while you hand off all of the pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the finished product. Be sure to discuss to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (generally sooner you probably have a selected deadline). For those who anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then it is best to most likely enable somewhat additional time – maybe a month in whole – for manufacturing.
