In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious fact 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 shouldn’t be ultimately person’s palms earlier than January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline may be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the user’s arms near the beginning of faculty if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a great timeline for all the project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s palms? Are you giving them away? If so, then it should 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 prospects or members; in that case you just have to ensure you enable enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to probably be cheaper and easier for you. Simply make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they are going to need and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How a lot time you want for sales is dependent upon your gross sales technique. Are you promoting at an area competition or other occasion? If so, then that provides you a deadline, but understand that you will be better off should you can promote at multiple occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion should not what you count on. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers sell calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to allow at the very least two weeks, and ideally up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own completely different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you plan to sell, you must be sure to develop and implement a solid advertising plan. Advertising and marketing does not have so as to add to the overall duration of the calendar project – you may and should begin marketing during the planning and manufacturing levels of the challenge. However, when you wait to begin marketing until you have the calendars in hand, then you will want to permit at the very least just a few extra weeks, perhaps extra, on your marketing message to achieve the meant audience and inspire them to purchase.
The production part of a calendar printing challenge starts once you hand off all of the images, text, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work for you to approve and then places 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 usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner if you have a selected deadline). In the event you anticipate last-minute modifications or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you need to in all probability permit somewhat additional time – maybe a month in total – for production.
