Custom printed calendars are still a popular promotional tool and they are a big part of my business. I sell tens of thousands of them every year. Yes, it is true that some folks use the calendar on their phones but recipients appreciate them and use them for a variety of reasons. For the advertiser, custom printed calendars are viewed by recipients so frequently that they deliver a very low cost per impression making them a no brainer.
Many of my customers reorder calendars consistently every year (hint: they are effective) and, over the years, some of them have told me how they distribute their calendars. The fact is that the key to using calendars as a marketing tool is getting them in the hands of customers and prospects. Some of my customers do this really well and almost never have any leftover at the end of the year.
Here’s a list of some of the unique distribution methods my customers have used to distribute their calendars. The common characteristic to these distribution methods is that my customer takes proactive effort in order to distribute the calendars.
Sometimes, at the end of the year, some of my customers have calendars leftover. Perhaps you could adapt one or more of these ideas to help you distribute your calendars before the end of the year or any leftover calendars at the end of the year:
1. Many of my customers mail them to their customers along with a letter.
2. I have quite a few customers who offer more than one calendar to a customer and suggest they take it to work, give it to a neighbor, friend, relative, etc.
3. I have one customer who donates leftovers to a senior center.
4. I have one customer who takes them to a local DMV and leaves on the counter.
5. I have a customer whose office is near a Home Depot. She walks the parking lot and hands out calendars to people who are getting into their cars to leave. She told me that she only hands them out to people who have decent looking cars because she thinks they’ll be better customers than people who have junky cars.
6. Some of my customers take them to commercial accounts and give them the employees.
7. This one takes some guts…I have a customer whose office is at a busy intersection. If he has any leftovers, he stands at the light and when it turns red, he hands out calendars to the motorists stopped at the light.