In planning any calendar printing challenge, the obvious reality to concentrate to is that each calendar is a time-sensitive product with a built-in distribution deadline. For the standard 2014 calendar, if your calendar is not ultimately person’s hands before January 1, 2014, they may already have found an alternate. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar must be in the user’s hands close to the beginning of college if it is going to be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline may give you a very good timeline for your complete challenge.
How are you getting your calendars into the tip user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? In that case, then it must be comparatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you will want to have calendars in hand. Or possibly you are mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you just have to make sure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or consider having the printer or a neighborhood mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it should most likely be cheaper and easier for you. Simply be sure you find out from the printer or mailhouse how a lot further time they will need and issue it in.
If, on the other hand, you plan to print a calendar and sell it, either as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making venture, then distribution is a bit more sophisticated. How much time you need for sales depends on your sales strategy. Are you selling at a neighborhood pageant or different event? If so, then that gives you a deadline, but needless to say you may be higher off for those who can sell at multiple occasions, in case attendance or sales at one occasion aren’t what you count on. Or possibly you might be having volunteers promote calendars to friends and family or door-to-door. If so, you should allow no less than two weeks, and ideally as much as 4 weeks, since volunteers all have their very own totally different schedules, and a few will want reminders and encouragement.
If you happen to print a calendar that you just plan to promote, it is best to make sure to develop and implement a strong advertising and marketing plan. Advertising and marketing doesn’t have so as to add to the general length of the calendar mission – you possibly can and may begin advertising in the course of the planning and manufacturing phases of the project. However, should you wait to start marketing until you’ve gotten the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow at least just a few extra weeks, perhaps extra, for your advertising message to achieve the meant audience and motivate them to purchase.
The production part of a calendar printing venture starts once you hand off the entire images, textual content, logos, advertising, and so forth. to the printer, and the printer turns it into calendar paintings for you to approve after which places 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’s normally about three weeks (sometimes sooner when you have a selected deadline). Should you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you’ll be proofing by committee, then it is best to in all probability allow somewhat further time – possibly a month in whole – for manufacturing.
