In planning any calendar printing undertaking, the obvious reality 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 is just not in the end person’s hands earlier than January 1, 2014, they could have already got found another. For a non-standard calendar that deadline could also be sooner (eg., a school-year calendar needs to be within the user’s arms close to the beginning of faculty if it will be helpful to them). Working backwards from this absolute deadline can provide you a superb timeline for the complete undertaking.
How are you getting your calendars into the end user’s fingers? Are you giving them away? If so, then it ought to be relatively straight-forward to figure out the distribution logistics and decide by what date you have to to have calendars in hand. Or perhaps you might be mailing them out to your clients or members; in that case you simply must ensure you allow enough time for inserting into envelopes, including a canopy letter, addressing and mailing. Or take into account having the printer or an area mailhouse handle mailing the calendars – it would most likely be cheaper and simpler for you. Simply make sure you discover out from the printer or mailhouse how much additional time they will need and issue it in.
If, then again, you plan to print a calendar and promote it, both as a nonprofit fundraiser or as a profit-making enterprise, then distribution is a little more difficult. How much time you want for sales relies on your sales strategy. Are you promoting at an area festival or different event? If so, then that offers you a deadline, but keep in mind that you’ll be better off if you happen to can promote at a number of occasions, in case attendance or gross sales at one event are not what you expect. Or perhaps you’re having volunteers promote calendars to family and friends or door-to-door. If that’s the case, it’s best to enable no less than two weeks, and preferably up to four weeks, since volunteers all have their own different schedules, and some will need reminders and encouragement.
When you print a calendar that you plan to sell, you should be sure to develop and implement a stable advertising plan. Advertising and marketing does not have to add to the overall duration of the calendar challenge – you’ll be able to and may begin marketing during the planning and production phases of the undertaking. Nonetheless, if you wait to begin marketing until you’ve the calendars in hand, then you will need to allow at the very least a few extra weeks, perhaps more, for your marketing message to succeed in the intended viewers and inspire them to buy.
The production phase of a calendar printing mission starts while you hand off all 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 and then 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 lengthy this takes. In our case at Yearbox, it is usually about three weeks (sometimes sooner in case you have a specific deadline). In case you anticipate last-minute changes or additions, or if you will be proofing by committee, then you need to most likely permit somewhat additional time – perhaps a month in total – for manufacturing.
