How to design promotional calendars

Last week I wrote about promotional calendars and shared my view on why I think they are useful and should always be considered as part of one's promotional toolkit. This week I will share some ideas on what type of calendars you can create, and other practical tips to consider before making a final decision.


photo credit: skyseeker via photo pin cc

Choosing the right format.

There are many types of calendars that you can create depending on the shape you choose or the way the dates are displayed. You can create a wall calendar, a desk calendar, a yearly planner, a pocket size calendar or a more creative calendar like monthly cards displayed in a CD box. Here is a quick review of the types of calendars I have experimented with:

• Wall Calendars: A wall calendar usually consists of 12 pages, one per month, and put the emphasis on the images. They are displayed on offices walls and are mainly used as decoration, so you need to make sure you choose beautiful photos.


• Desk calendars: a desk calendar can be made in various ways, but typically they are designed to be displayed on top of a desk or counter, so they are much smaller. People look at them frequently when they need to find a date, so the actual calendar part is quite important.


• Wall planners: A planner is a large poster on which all the months are displayed so that a user can quickly see the whole year without turning pages. There is far less room for images, so planners are more used for their practicability than for their esthetic design.


• Desk pad calendars: Desk pads are simply large notepads, between A3 and A2 in size, that people keep on their desks and on which they can write, take notes or doodle. They come with a multiple number of sheets, between 30 and 100, all with the same design. Desk pads are used on a daily basis so are really good promotional items. Photos are really small on them, so it's really more to promote your logo and a short message.

How do you choose which format you want? You need to consider three things:

1. Your clients: Are your clients mainly in offices, do they work in workshops, in front of a computer? Depending on their activities certain types of calendars won't be adapted. For example a desk calendar will be of no use to mechanics standing all day in a garage.


2. Your budget: All products don't have the same costs so this is definitely something to consider. If you didn't plan to spend much on calendars, your options might be very limited.


3. The delivery: the delivery represents a large part of the budget depending where your clients are located and can impact your choice of calendar. If you hand deliver your calendars, or include them with product purchases then you do not need to worry about their size. But if you ship them overseas, then you might prefer a small design.

Choosing images that resonate with your clients.

Pictures on a calendar are very important so you need to take some time to think about what you want to display. Here are a few ideas:

• Stunning photos of your country: if you work in a global environment and have clients internationally, it might be nice for them to discover your country through your calendar, especially if your country offers beautiful landscapes. I live in Switzerland and calendars at my previous company used to be very popular, people just loved to see the Swiss Alps, blue lakes and green fields.


• Photos from your staff: You could enroll your staff to contribute to the calendar and have them submit their preferred photos with a small description of what is on the image. You would then give credit to your staff under each photo. This is a good way to involve your staff in marketing activities and make your company more human, because remember that people connect with people, not with companies.


• Photos of your clients: Depending on the type of business you run, you could choose to show photos of your clients using your products. This could be a good opportunity to create some buzz and organise a contest where your clients would send you pictures and the best pictures would win a gift on top of being displayed in the calendar.

Getting them designed and printed

You also have a few options when it comes to the design and print of your calendars:

• In-house: You can choose to design your calendar in-house and have it printed by your local print shop. This would be a lot of work since you would have to design the grids for each month, and mistakes can be easily made.


• Online site: You can order a ready made calendar from a website like Vistaprint, but these tend to be on the cheap side and might not be easily customisable.


• Specialized company: You can also find a company specialized in making calendars and work with them to design your custom product. For example, I used to work with Calendaria (in Switzerland) and they would let us customize our design as we wanted, but they would be the ones creating the actual calendar part with the dates, public holiday, etc.. They also offered a large gallery of stock images to choose from, so we knew that our calendar would be beautiful and with the right dates. Most print shops also offer calendars these days so have a chat with your print partner.

One last thing, make sure your calendars are ready to be sent before Christmas otherwise they won't have the same effect and your clients might already have a new calendar from someone else when they receive yours.