5 top tips for designing creative calendars

With the New Year fast approaching, it’s the perfect time to think about saying thank you to your clients and looking forward to a new year of business.

A promotional calendar is a fantastic is gift to either sell or give to your customers. Given the right care and attention, a promotional calendar could remain on your customer’s wall or desk for a whole twelve months! That’s year round marketing for a tiny price!

Most of your clients will probably be expecting a card, a letter or even a bill from you in the coming month but a calendar will be unexpected, impressive and thoughtful, keeping you in their mind in the coming year.

The following tips will help you get it right first time so that you can reap the rewards in 2015.

1. Get the timing right

Calendar printing is time sensitive. There’s no point sending out a calendar days before Christmas, that’s already too late. Your customers may receive a calendar from someone else or pick up one cheap in the sales. Get your calendar out early and you have a good chance of gaining a coveted spot on the office wall. The sooner you can start the better. Ideally October and November are perfect, giving you enough time to design, print and distribute your Calendar.

2. Have a theme

If you look around, most calendars have a theme that appeals to people’s interests or current trends. You could focus the calendar on your line of business. Landscape gardener? Get some photos of the gardens you are most proud to have created. Vintage Shop? Get a photographer to help you compose some beautiful photos using your stock.

If your business isn’t quite as visually appealing (we’re looking at you slurry services…), you could tie it in to your local area. Purchase or take your own photos of local landmarks, this way it links to where you are based and will strike a chord with customers living in your area. Landscape photography is always a strong favourite theme for promotional calendars.

Alternatively, get more creative! Jump on to the internet’s current love of cats, have some fun with puns, arrange vegetables in to the faces of celebrities or make your own Calendar Girls inspired photo shoot. Weird or funny topics will be loved and will make sure you get noticed.

Ultimately, if your calendar is exciting, interesting and beautiful, it will be well received by your customers.

3. Be seasonal

For most types of calendar, you will have twelve images to create. You want these to be as interesting and relevant as possible. Think about landmarks through the year such as Easter, Christmas and Halloween, as well as the seasons themselves, and have some fun incorporating them into your design!

4. Brand, brand, brand!

First and foremost, your promotional calendar is a marketing tool, so make sure it looks like one. Use your brand colours and design style to good effect and include your logo on each page to make sure your customers are reminded of who gave them their wonderful calendar.

5. Think about the format

There are many different types of calendar for you to consider when designing yours. Each has its own merits. Large one sheet posters have a large presence on a wall, month-by-month wall calendars give you twelve different images to get creative with and desk top calendars give you a strong presence on the desks of your customers.

Swallowtail Print experts can help you find the right calendar for you and with many designs fitting around a similar template, we can keep the cost low without skimping on quality.

Get in touch to find out more or see calender printing.