According to Anita Jalbert, vice president of sales and marketing for SunGraphix, Auburn, Maine, a planner or calendar is used an average of eight to 10 times a day over the course of a year or more. That opens the door for a lot of promotional opportunities. We spoke to Jalbert; Dan Finn, owner of Finn Graphics Inc., Cincinnati; and Phil Martin, national sales manager of Warwick Publishing Co., St. Charles, Ill. to find out what distributors should keep in mind when selling calendars and planners.
1. Wide Open Spaces
The point of a calendar or planner is to stay organized, but that can be hard if your notes are barely legible due to lack of writing space. “We find the most important feature for a calendar/planner is writing space,” Jalbert said. “The pages should be well formatted, crisp, clean and inviting, without clutter.”
Jalbert also explained planners should have different sections for end-users to keep track of different information. “SunGraphix planners offer two calendar views in each planner—weekly view and monthly view,” she said. “The weekly view is fantastic for recording appointments and to-do lists. The monthly view assists with planning ahead, and recording travel and events for easy viewing.”
2. The Right Font
Picking a large, easy-to-read font size is also essential for designing a great calendar. “Font size is always going to be heavily influenced by the size of the item as designed for the intended space,” Finn said. “Regardless of the size though, font selection is critical to readability, and we work [to] maximize readability on even our smaller items.”
3. Make It Valuable
If a calendar or planner is personalized to the end-user rather than being generic, the end-user is more likely to hold on to it and see your client’s logo. “In most cases, I think anytime you can add value to the calendar in some way you are ahead of the curve,” Martin said. “If you give the recipient of the calendar a reason to hang on to it for the entire year, the advertiser gets more bang for the buck. You know the calendar is in front and in mind.” Personalization also means knowing the clientele. “You don’t want to send a wildlife hunting calendar to the local beauty shop,” he said.
Jalbert also mentioned the importance of customizing. “In the promotional market, you will see more creative uses of the imprint area and added features,” she said. “SunGraphix offers custom inserts to create a planner tailored to the end-user, with strong branding and content from the distributor’s client, along with personalization. Don’t we all like to see our name in print?”
4. Power of Four
Both Martin and Finn talked about the value of four-color process imprinting. “In the past, we did primarily foil stamping and simple one-color letterpress printing,” Martin said. “Now, in the digital age, we can put full four-color imprints on some select calendars.
[It’s] great for the real estate and insurance agents that like their faces on items.” Finn believes four-color imprinting is a hit because of its versatility. “End-user-supplied art increasingly contains half-tone and gradient elements, even if it doesn’t have full-color images,” he said. “This type of art can [be] printed without issue using four-color process, but options are very limited in these cases with traditional spot-color printing.”
5. Desk Calendars
Desk calendars might not be as popular as they once were, but Finn and Martin assure there is still a market for them. “Medical appointment desks, and any other work area in homes and businesses, still use a [desk calendar],” Finn said. “However, printed calendars for reference purposes (day of week to date look up) are tremendously successful, if accessible. YAG (Year-At-Glance) calendars are still frequently used in places like medical receptionist desks and other places where appointments are scheduled.”
Martin also explained the importance of a desk calendar. “I personally keep one of our desk calendars right next to my computer,” he said. “In my case, the desk calendar is a reference piece. Your business and social lives will not evolve around the easel-back desk calendar. They are quick, easy access, reference items. You don’t always need to toggle back and forth on your computer when you have the desk calendar right in view. Not to mention, I have never seen the ‘blue screen of death’ on my desk or wall calendar. No spam, no hacking, no pop-up windows, and you only have to update once a year. They aren’t going to be dropped in a puddle or the toilet either, hopefully.”
6. Just the Right Size
There are perfect situations for desk calendars, but carrying around a binder or full-size calendar while you go about your day probably isn’t ideal. Jalbert explained that recently smaller planners have been trendy. “Planner sizes have shifted from the larger three-ring binder varieties to sleeker pocket-sized books,” Jalbert said.
7. Paper Products
Technology can enhance calendars and planners, but that doesn’t mean paper products will disappear anytime soon in this category. “Technology is wonderful, but we believe there is room for both paper and electronic calendars,” Jalbert said. “More and more people are coming back to paper planners as a companion or replacement for electronic calendars. Our quality planners have quite a loyal following with orders that return year-after-year. What’s not to love? They are crash-proof, a signal or battery is not needed to quickly flip through our pages and it is so easy to record information quickly on the go.”
Jalbert also explained that using a paper planner might actually be better for you in the long run. “Studies have also shown that the act of handwriting information improves memory and cognitive function—another great reason to flip.”
