calendars....

[greenoak]

this time of year we are inundated with card and calendar offers.... nice big ones with your cOmpany name and pictures for every month for 2 or 2.50 each,in groups of 50 and on up......thats nice...but the visuals are so generic and middle of the road...
why cant someone come up with this offer?....send me 12 pictures and will send back your calendars for 4 or 5$$$....i think thats really a good idea for someone...
i would love to buy that FOR MY CUSTOMERS......but i dont think its out there... YET...

[Patrysha]

Well for that kind of customization I don't think you'd find it for less than $10 per calendar unless you were buying in a significant volume. Paper is expensive, to buy and to ship.

[greenoak]

i know..its just an idea for someone.....but its not the paper or shipping, i can easily buy and have shipped calendars for 2.50..i got at elast 3 catalogs today offering them.....i dont want those tho...
if someone could figure out easy customization they would have lots of buyers... a store like mine cant afford a hundred 10$$$ gifts...

[Blessed]

It isn't the paper & shipping - it's the printing. They can offer those calendars so cheap because they print so many of them at a time. The cheapest I can get calendars printed for is a little under $2.50 each, but I have to order a minimum of 500 of them for that price.

I am getting a quote on calendars from a local printer - I don't expect them to be cheap, but we'll see...

[Steve B]

There are tons of places to get custom made calendars - just type in "Custom Calendar" in Google. They cost a lot more than you are wishing to spend of course.

It's like me wishing I could find someone to sell me a new car for $3,000. It would be nice, but it can't possibly exist because they would be losing money on every car sold. Jenn is right, it's not the paper - it's the set up and labor to print just a couple hundred of something.

[greenoak]

stores can easily find calendars with a little custom printing at the bottom for 2 to 3$$ at the 50 level... ...you can get 50 for 2.69, with your logo here .. Business Calendars and Cards For Your Business | Cordial Greetings (http://www.cordialgreetings.com) ....
you might be suprised steve... someday ,i figure someone will figure out how to add the 12 custom pictures and then WALLA, a new business will be out there, filling a need...... ...it would take a big organized plot to do it......

[Steve B]

There is a huge difference in the two things. The custom pictures you're looking for are in color. The ones you're talking about have the color photos printed in mass quantities, then they go back and cheaply print the name at the bottom with a simple one color process.

[boogle]

Docucopies is pretty darn cheap. Local places will spiral bind pretty cheap too. If you do the printing yourself and get is spiral bound, you can get all the printing for a calendar done for around 50 cents if you will do the binding and setting up work. (docucolor is $.07 for color copies at 1000 copies, not much more for less quantity). This way you can add your events and information on the dates of the calender as well. Word and google docs have good calendar templates. That is what I do anyway...

[greenoak]

right steve...the words at the bottom are just in black...and the companies just offer a selection of generic calendars...not what im looking for.
thanks boogle....we should do that .we could do the printing and paper real easy.and we have lots of good pictures...and have a laser printer.... collages would b e good too.....we do our own flyers and signs already....i didnt realize places could spiral bind for you....if i find a place that can do that i will probably give it a big effort..for next year.... we tried it last year and didnt realize we could get it bound....we just found the 15$$ places.....
..... we are just swamped right now.... our big christmas thing is 2 weeks away....
i would love to give a nice calendar to my top 100 customers....

[boogle]

Yeah, I think office depot will spiral bind for a buck or two, depending on how many you are doing, you can buy a spiral binding machine (they are really easy to use), for $100, probably less if you hunt on ebay for a bit.

[greenoak]

thanks!!!......

[Patrysha]

Or you could potentially rent one from a local school...

[greenoak]

fyi....the lulu company gets you down into the 3.99 raNGE FOR CALENDars with your pictures at the 500 level..i just found it....
.actually they are offfering just what i was suggesting at the start of this thread....it looks pretty easy....
i like my customers but so far cant see spending 2000$$$ giving away calelndars......
ann

[Spider]

Re: the cost of calendars.

1. How much do you pay to get your name and business card into the hands of a potential customer?

2. How much do you pay to remind your existing customers of your name and phone number at (ir)regular intervals? And how many times a year do you do it?

3. How much would you pay to have an oversized business card pinned permanently for the entire year to the office wall of your customers and/or prospects. Or permanently pinned to their kitchen wall, family room, powder room (!) or any other room of their house?

4. View for view, calendars are the cheapest form of advertising yet devised.

If it costs you $1 to put a flier in the hands of a prospect and you send a flier 4 times a year, that's $4 for 4 views. For $4 you can get a good-looking calendar that they, and their entire family/office staff/co-workers will see 365 times a year!

This is why calendars are so favored by big charities - they have the big bucks to spend and yet they must be very frugal and get the maximum payback for their advertising.

Is it worth spending more for custom-pictures on your calendars? Possibly? But I would think the cost to consider there is the cost of the photography, because pictures you took on your cellphone are not going to be good enough to hang on somebody's wall for a year. The pictures you see on calendars are chosen from thousands of possibles from the best photographers in the world.

Best to get calendars with generic pictures of the type your prospects will enjoy and would love to hang on their family-room wall. In your case, Ann, I would suggest pictures by Norman Rockwell. Any seller of advertising specialties can get you lots to choose from. (Don't use the net - support local businesses!)

If you really must have your own pictures and have thought about this seriously enough, check with Fedex Office (formerly Kinko's) Those guys can do anything and quiite inexpensively, too. My local Kinko guys are wizards at this kind of thing.

[greenoak]

good thoughts spider....except the norman rockwell idea!!! not us at all....we could do this....but it would sure cost a lot...
.our own pictures would be perfect.....we have a huge trove of pictures to pick from and our customers do like our pictures ...from comments on our blog site and facebook.... ..pictures of our stuff would be the point....or better yet our stuff looking good in situ...in a homey setting....
you are right tho, it is a major thing for some businesses...... we were in a condo once with the owner of a huge calendar company...and she mentioned companies who used your logic and sent out hundreds of their calendars....and that was just the generic ones with their name at the bottom....
really everybody needs an extra calendar..
..but i couldnt replace sending out our event mail with a calendar... so different.... it would have to be something extra...like the freebie at the openhouse...

[Spider]

I wasn't considering replacing your other advertising, just using the cost of what you already do to compare and illustrate.

As your business seems to be growing - which I take as increased income - that should translate in to a bigger advertising budget, if you wish to continue growing. This extra money could be used on more different things, like calendars, but these should not, in my view, be considered as give-aways - they are income-generators.

Use calendars to improve and suppliment your event advertising by deciding early your actual dates and ring those dates by hand, red marker, on every calendar. Encourage people to plan well in advance to set your event dates aside. Your flier notices then become reminders of something they already know about, rather than initial information.

If you do that, choose dates near the end of the month for your events, so your prospects will be looking at that red ringed off date for a couple of weeks before the big day. The choice of pictures should be about "Will the recipient hang this on their wall?" rather than try to turn the calendar into a brochure.

[greenoak]

i see what you mean.... looking at it in the whole year view is good....still coming up with $$$2000 AND Staying under 10percent for marketing is a challenge....we have 3 billboards etc etc...
and i have real appealing vintage pictures too..so it would be some variety not just a big ad all the time.... it would be all pictures ...not words .
figuring out the event dates ahead is SUCH A GOOD IDEA....
we are growing this year....but still not up to the peak about 4 yrs ago...almost tho...and this month is heading to the best nov ever.... why we dont know ......we feel p retty lucky and on the right track....

[AmyAllen]

Overnight Prints (http://www.overnightprints.com/calendars) is running a 40% off special right now on calendars. You upload your own photos and then choose a grid design. If you purchase 250 they run $4.76 each.

[dynocat]

ann, have you checked out VistaPrint (http://www.vistaprint.com/personalized-calendars.aspx?xnav=TsrHeading). They have a huge variety. You could have a different picture for each month or a collage of photos. Once you sign up on their site, you will be flooded with discount offers. I always thought of them as low end, but after seeing some business cards of theirs, I'm impressed with how nice they are.

[greenoak]

i really need to do that dynocat....vista print has a pretty great reputation with some stores i know.....
thanks for the link amy...
ann

[Blessed]

The online printer I use sometimes would print 500 calendars for just under $800, adding in a fee for design you are probably looking at $2 per calendar - or $1000. My hesitation with using them or VistaPrint or some other online printer is the lack of control you have over your final product. The quality of everything I've ever had printed has been excellent - but if there has ever been a problem with an order... customer service stinks.

The local printer I use quoted me just under $500 for 100 calendars adding in a fee for design you get up over $5 or $6 per calendar.

I agree with Spider - a calendar, especially one that has your sale dates pre printed on it is awesome advertising. Especially if it is something that people come in and pick up - and it is something that you spend the time and money on to have done right and look good.

[greenoak]

thanks jenn...
.now i better save these ideas for next year.... back when i first tried to figure this out and had the time to do it i couldnt find the right price range....now there seem to be some real good possibilities out there.......if i did it with lulu or vista print i would probably pay top dollar for the first one before ordering 500.... just to be safe.... i really dont want to do it inhouse....