In planning any calendar printing challenge, the most obvious reality to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For a standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar isn’t ultimately consumer’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they could already have found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the consumer’s fingers near the start of faculty if it’ll be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you an excellent timeline for your entire challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the end consumer’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it should be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your prospects or members; in that case you just have to ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or a local mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it’ll most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply ensure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they may want and factor it in.
If, however, you intend to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more difficult. How a lot time you need for sales is determined by your gross sales technique. Are you selling at a neighborhood competition or other occasion? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, but take into account that you may be higher off in case you can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or sales at one occasion are usually not what you count on. Or possibly you’re having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, you should allow no less than two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own totally different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to sell, you need to you’ll want to develop and implement a strong marketing plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the overall length of the calendar undertaking – you can and should begin advertising and marketing in the course of the planning and manufacturing levels of the undertaking. However, when you wait to start out marketing until you will have the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit no less than a number of additional weeks, maybe extra, on your advertising message to achieve the meant audience and encourage them to buy.
The manufacturing part of a calendar printing challenge begins whenever you hand off all of the images, text, logos, promoting, and many others. 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. Ensure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is often about three weeks (typically sooner you probably have a specific deadline). When you anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then you need to most likely allow just a little further time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
