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 is just not in the end consumer’s arms earlier than January 1, 2014, they might already have discovered another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the person’s palms close to the beginning of school if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you timeline for the whole project.
How are you getting your calendars into the end person’s palms? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it should be relatively straight-forward to determine the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you might be mailing them out to your customers or members; in that case you simply have to ensure you permit sufficient time for inserting into envelopes, including a cover letter, addressing and mailing. Or contemplate having the printer or an area mailhouse deal with mailing the calendars – it will most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply be sure to find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot additional time they’ll need and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you propose to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a bit more complicated. How a lot time you need for sales is dependent upon your gross sales strategy. Are you selling at a local festival or different occasion? If so, then that gives you a deadline, however keep in mind that you’ll be better off for those who can sell at multiple events, in case attendance or gross sales at one occasion are not what you expect. Or possibly you are having volunteers sell calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, it’s best to enable not less than two weeks, and ideally up to 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
In case you print a calendar that you simply plan to promote, it’s best to be sure you develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising does not have to add to the general length of the calendar project – you can and should start advertising during the planning and manufacturing levels of the challenge. However, in case you wait to begin advertising until you have the calendars in hand, then you’ll need to allow at the least a number of further weeks, maybe extra, in your advertising message to achieve the supposed viewers and inspire them to purchase.
The production phase of a calendar printing project begins once you hand off the entire pictures, textual content, logos, advertising, etc. 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 is usually about three weeks (generally sooner you probably have a selected deadline). For those who anticipate last-minute adjustments or additions, or if you can be proofing by committee, then you must probably enable somewhat extra time – perhaps a month in total – for production.
