Every year, companies all over the nation are thinking of new ways to reach more customers and to stay relevant to their current customers. All year round we see thousands of orders coming in for a wide variety of printed merchandise that companies use as giveaways. Usually, it’s a printed pen or a custom printed mug to keep their brand in front of the customer at all times.
We’ve never found anything more effective than a printed wall calendar. You would think that, in 2019, these archaic printed products would not be relevant. We all have a calendar on our phones and computers, why on earth would we need one up on the wall as well.
In fairness, I personally find it a lot easier to have a calendar on the wall. It’s so much more visual and more immediate than a digital calendar, so to me personally, it’s still a very relevant printed piece of merchandise.
I understand though, it’s difficult to justify this coming out of your marketing budget sometimes. So we’ve come up with 3 awesome ways to completely flip the capital outlay into an investment. Here are 3 ways to make money from your company’s printed wall calendars:
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Selling wall calendars especially applies to charities. With a bit of creativity, you can have a fully customised wall calendar, with different designs for every month. With that level of customisation, it’s easy for a charity to create something which relates to their cause for each month of the year.
It’s of course, not cost-effective to produce a one-off calendar but we can still produce low quantities. Our pricing on low quantities is still competitive enough that you can sell it on for your charity, church or fundraising cause for a profit.
Don’t forget, wall calendars aren’t just restricted to being calendars. We often get requests for what essentially becomes twelve pieces of art that you can hang on your customers' walls year-round. This makes it an attractive offering for artists too.
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Companies spend tens of thousands of pounds on merchandise every year to get their brands and services in front of existing and potential new customers. Some things just end up in the bin. We have often found that when you give somebody a functional piece of merchandise that they can gain some real value from, they keep it for at least the time it is useful to them.
Printed wall calendars fit perfectly into this category. Because there is an actual use for them, we’ve found that people tend to keep wall calendars hung up all year round. It’s a practical tool and people will use them at least weekly, if not daily. They become part of the office furniture and would make a wall look empty if taken down.
With the calendar always being hung on your customers’ walls, your brand is always visible to them. You should always include your contact details, website and branding on every page to ensure it’s easy to reach you, it doesn’t have to be tacky, we can help you brand this in a subtle way. You never know when someone has a need for your services, it’s always great to have the information they need immediately in front of them at all times.
Because they’re so useful, customers will often come back to you and ask for another wall calendar year after year. This holds up, especially if the artwork you create for your calendars stands out enough and looks good enough to hang as art. All of this helps cement client relationships and gets you more business.
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An effective way to completely offset your costs when it comes to printing your custom wall calendars is to sell advertising space all around the monthly planners. You could potentially make a profit if you can prove your calendars are going to reach customers that advertisers otherwise find hard to reach.
In particular, the most effective targeting can be done within specific industries or professions. You could contact businesses who are trying to sell specific products to your clients.
For example, a multi-branch commercial estate agency could sell advertising space to cleaning companies, roofing companies, solar panel companies, utility companies, stationers, furniture suppliers, signage manufacturers, telecoms services and insurance companies.
Highlighting key dates is also a great opportunity to sell space, such as marking a date in April marked for Spring Cleaning and selling that as a sponsored date to a cleaning company. Or marking a date in the calendar sponsored by a print company with the countdown to Christmas to nudge the customer to order their custom greeting cards for Christmas with a discount code.
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If I were to create a wall calendar to give away to clients, I would go about it in this way:
1 - Utilise our in-house design team to create twelve incredible pieces of art from January to December - one for each month of the year. They are super creative and I would have all the faith in the world that they would come up with twelve unique pieces that stand out and look really attractive.
2 - Create twelve unique offers and highlight those on each of the months. For example, discounts on printed greetings cards for the month of December.
3 - Find key dates throughout the year and drop in promotions, product ideas and design ideas to try and create engagement with the clients.
4 - Contact businesses that have some lateral advertising opportunities and get them to advertise and sponsor the calendar. For example, tap our sister company, Project Click, to advertise our bespoke and template-based web design services as Project Click serves hundreds of startups.
For bonus points, I would spend the month of December booking appointments to see my clients throughout the month of January. When I send out their promotional calendar, I mark the date I am due to meet with them so that it is an immediate reminder to them when they receive it. So if you’re looking to get your brand in front of hundreds and thousands of customers and make money doing it, contact us today for a quote on your custom printed promotional wall calendars.
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If you have any queries or really enjoy this blog, we encourage you to comment below or write to us at hello@apprintable.com and let us know. We'd love to hear all of your Christmas stories, how creative your Christmas cards are and festive experiences on Christmas as we do love Christmas at Apprintable!
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