In planning any calendar printing project, the most obvious reality to pay attention to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar isn’t in the end person’s palms before January 1, 2014, they could have already got discovered an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be in the person’s arms near the beginning of faculty if it is going to be useful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a very good timeline for all the project.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip consumer’s hands? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it should be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will need to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply must ensure you enable 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 will in all probability be cheaper and simpler for you. Just make sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how much further time they are going to need and factor it in.
If, however, you propose to print a calendar and promote it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more difficult. How a lot time you need for sales is determined by your sales strategy. Are you selling at a local pageant or different event? If that’s the case, then that offers you a deadline, however remember that you will be higher off in case you can promote at a number of events, in case attendance or gross sales at one event will not be what you count on. Or possibly you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. In that case, it is best to permit at least two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
Should you print a calendar that you plan to promote, you should remember to develop and implement a stable marketing plan. Advertising does not have so as to add to the overall period of the calendar challenge – you can and will begin advertising and marketing during the planning and manufacturing stages of the project. However, in the event you wait to start marketing till you will have the calendars in hand, then you will have to permit not less than a few extra weeks, maybe more, in your advertising message to reach the supposed viewers and motivate them to buy.
The manufacturing phase of a calendar printing project starts if you hand off all of the images, textual content, logos, promoting, and so on. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar art work so that you can approve after which puts it on the press and delivers to you the completed product. Ensure you talk to your printer early on to fins out how long this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is often about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you have a selected deadline). If you happen to anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you may be proofing by committee, then you must in all probability enable slightly additional time – perhaps a month in whole – for manufacturing.
