By: Brad Kartel
Submitted: 2010-11-01 19:46:05 | Word Count: 1130
Now, you have decided to use custom calendars as one of your fundraising ideas. The process of developing fundraising calendars is relatively simple, but it does not mean that you do not have to work hard to do it right. If you are just winging this process however, you might want to learn a bit of structure so that your fundraising calendars can turn out correctly.
In this tutorial for calendar printing, I will teach you how to research, develop and deploy your fundraising calendars properly for the best possible results. Just follow the 10 steps below to learn the whole process.
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Step 1: Research – Everything starts with research nowadays if you want to do things properly. Calendar printing for fundraising is no different. You need to do some homework and know exactly who you want to sell your custom calendars to. If you target the right market demographic that is more likely to buy those fundraising calendars, you can increase your chances of getting those extra funds for your project. So do your research and determine who are most likely to buy calendars in your community or market area. Know their likes and dislikes, their tastes and preferences. This will be a good resource guide for your future decisions in calendar printing.
Step 2: Concept Development – Once you know your audience, you can then move on to concept development. This is where you decide what exactly you will put into your custom calendars. Typically you will want a calendar with a picture collection that your target market will like. So if you think that men are your target, you might want to go for a calendar concept with image collections of things they like. Beautiful models, high performance cars, gadgets and even sports related picture collections will typically work for that demographic.
You can also do the same if you are targeting more female audiences, or any other specific demographic for that matter. Just try to brainstorm the best concept for your target demographic and you should be on your way for a good time in calendar printing.
Step 3: Material gathering – With your concept fully developed, it is time to do some work and gather your materials This of course means taking the high resolution photographs that you need for your custom calendars, as well getting the calendar templates and other important text content that you need inserted into your fundraising calendars. Try to make a list of things that you need in terms of content and then just start gathering them. Make sure that you check each content and design element for errors already so that you can have a smooth process once you create the draft.
Step 4: Drafting – When you have finished gathering all you need for your calendars, it will then be the time to start the draft. Using your favorite desktop publishing application, load up your calendar template and then just start adding the content that you need. Depending on the theme concept you developed earlier this process can be meticulous or even easy sometimes. It all depends on your creativity and patience really, but always try to design the best custom folder layout that you can.
Step 5: Testing – Once the draft is done, do not forget to test your designs to a select audience. By asking your colleagues, family and friends to judge your calendar printing draft, you can get some constructive feedback on design elements that might be good or that might be lacking in some respects. Take down these notes for further consideration in your design.
Step 6: Refining – When you get those reactions after testing, you can then move on and refine your designs. Besides changing elements that seem lacking for some people, you should also aim to improve and enhance your images and text. Apply correction filters, added effects and just generally review what else needs to be tweaked and improved. This will be your final check before calendar printing so make sure everything looks perfect.
Step 7: Choosing your printer – Finally, you can then start the printing process by looking for a printer. In this situation, you will want to print calendars by hiring professional calendar printers. You can easily get one by looking for online printing services. Typically most printing firms have online portals that will let you order up custom calendars with your own custom designs. Just try to compare the different calendar printing companies you see online and look for the best one that has the best prices for quality printing. It should be easy enough to discover the best one fore you since you can easily compare prices online.
Step 8: Choosing your printing options – Once you get the most affordable high quality printing company for your custom calendars, you can then choose your printing options. Typically you will have to decide on your paper materials, the inks and the binding of the calendar. Depending on your market, some options are better than others. However, generally it is best to use glossy paper materials with moisture resistant inks. This will help make your custom calendars tougher and long lasting.
After choosing your printing options, you should then just send up your designs to the printer and then pay for your order. Within a few days, they should deliver the new printed fundraising calendars to you. It is that easy.
Step 9: Deployment – Great! Once you get your calendars, you can then deploy them for fundraising. You can of course just sell them in your shop, or you can have people sell those calendars to their friends and family members. You can even try setting up a booth to sell your custom calendars. Use any means necessary to sell them. The more extensive your techniques the better chances of getting extra funds.
Step 10: Assessment – Finally, once you have sold your fundraising calendars, you should never forget to do an assessment. Ask yourself questions like: Did I sell to the right people? What locations where the best to sell calendars? Did the quality of the design sell? What made the fundraising calendars succeed/fail? With a proper assessment of what happened, you can improve your fundraising efforts in the future using custom calendars.
That is how you create custom calendars for fundraising properly. By doing things right, you can probably get a good amount of fundraising done with your custom calendars. You can even probably maintain these efforts yearly if you want to. So take the steps above to heart and make your fundraising calendars the best prints that you can create.
Author Resource:-
Brad Kartel is a marketing executive whose passion is helping individuals or organizations build their fundraising campaign through fundraising calendars. See more great fundraising ideas.
