In planning any calendar printing mission, 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 just isn’t in the long run consumer’s arms before 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 needs to be in the user’s arms near the beginning of faculty if it’s going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a superb timeline for the complete project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end user’s hands? Are you giving them away? If so, then it needs to be comparatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and determine by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or maybe you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just must make sure you permit enough time for inserting into envelopes, adding a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or think about having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it is going to most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much extra time they’ll want and factor it in.
If, alternatively, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How much time you want for sales will depend on your sales technique. Are you selling at a local competition or other event? If that’s the case, then that provides you a deadline, but keep in mind that you’ll be better off for those who can sell at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion should not what you count on. Or maybe you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to allow at the very least two weeks, and ideally as much as four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and a few will need reminders and encouragement.
If you print a calendar that you plan to sell, it’s best to you’ll want to develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the overall period of the calendar venture – you can and may start marketing throughout the planning and production stages of the project. Nonetheless, if you wait to start marketing till you will have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow at the very least a number of additional weeks, possibly more, in your marketing message to reach the meant audience and encourage them to purchase.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing mission starts once you hand off the entire photographs, textual content, logos, advertising, and many others. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar artwork so that you can approve after which places it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Be sure you speak to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it’s often about three weeks (typically sooner if you have a specific deadline). If you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you must most likely allow a little bit extra time – possibly a month in whole – for manufacturing.
