Calendars are the timeless tool that keeps our schedules in check and serves as an effective tool for marketing your business. However, we're not talking about just a regular calendar you buy at your local retail store or that booth at the mall. We're talking about custom promotional calendars.

Beyond just telling dates, these calendars are tailored to your brand and offer a unique way to advertise your company throughout the year. These printed calendars tell stories, celebrate seasonal company events, promote monthly deals, and, most importantly, make your brand unforgettable.

In this blog, we'll look at why custom-printed calendars are an essential tool for promoting your business and provide tips on how to get the most out of your calendar campaign.

Why It’s Important to Promote Your Business with Custom Calendars

Custom calendars—or promotional calendars—serve as more than just date reminders or planners. They are powerful branding and advertising tools. By creating a calendar personalized to your business and what it offers, you can consistently place your brand in front of customers and prospects daily, building loyalty, awareness, and recognition. Additionally, calendars provide you with opportunities for monthly promotions, enabling you to highlight new deals or share valuable insights about your company, helpful tips, and information relevant to your industry.

Essentially, a custom calendar is a strategic blend of marketing, utility, and brand storytelling, making it an indispensable tool for your business to engage with its audience, build strong brand awareness, and increase sales.

The Benefits of Promotional Calendars

Increased Brand Exposure

About 75% of people remember a brand after receiving a printed ad. In comparison, only 44% can recall a brand after viewing an online ad, proving that printed promotional items are far better at getting your brand known than online efforts. Additionally, while this statistic is accurate for print in general, when you bring in printed calendars, you're already getting that initial strong brand recall, but because the calendar is used for an entire year rather than just for an event, new product promotion, or to advertise a sale, you're putting your brand in front of your audience all year long. This increases brand exposure and awareness, making it far more likely that your calendar recipients will choose your brand over your competitors when making a purchasing decision.

They’re Used on a Daily Basis

"Let me check my calendar" is used every day worldwide. Many people rely on their calendars to keep their schedules on track and remember important dates and holidays. While also effective marketing tools, unlike greeting cards, chocolates, and other merchandise, calendars are used on the daily for an entire year, making them the perfect promotional gift for your customers and prospects. In addition to your brand's message being viewed daily and building strong recognition, you also give your audience a useful and thoughtful gift.

Provides Year Long Advertising Opportunities

Once hung or placed on a desk, your calendar stays put for twelve months, meaning your audience will see it every time they walk past it, jot down an upcoming event, or check the date. Because of this, you can advertise within your calendar and guarantee it will be seen. For example, when someone checks when their holiday gathering with the family is, when their next conference is, or when that next appointment they scheduled is, you have the opportunity to share information about your company, a seasonal sale, or an intriguing statistic that will make them want to call your company to get a quote for your services.

Calendars are Cost-Effective

Marketing campaigns you run all year round, such as online display ads, are expensive and can cost thousands of dollars per month while only displaying a few different messages or even the same. They are also scrolled over or ignored by many. Conversely, calendars are interacted with each month and provide you with a tangible touchpoint for engaging your audience with what you offer for a fraction of the cost of other advertising efforts. You can include several different ads for each month. You also have complete control over who receives your calendar, allowing you to know who is using it. Because of this, you can tailor your design to reflect your target audience's interests and needs and thus maximize your ROI.

Your Audience Enjoys Them

For many people, a calendar is a daily tool. For others, it's an occasional tool used to remember birthdays and other events. Regardless, everyone uses a calendar. While mobile calendars send reminders without ever having to look at the calendar, many people still prefer a physical calendar. In fact, a study showed that 67% of the time, people check their printed calendar instead of their digital one, and 76% prefer to use a printed calendar. These findings prove that your audience enjoys calendars, making them the perfect promotional gift. You gain twelve months of advertising opportunities and brand exposure at a low cost, and your audience gains a helpful and thoughtful gift.

Tips to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Promotional Calendar

Keep Your Audience in Mind When Designing Your Calendar

Your audience may receive several calendars from other companies as well as yours. While they may keep one at home and one in their office, depending on how many they receive, they'll only use the ones they like the most. This doesn't mean the company they like the most; it means the design. Because of this, you want to keep who your audience is in mind as you gather content and put your calendar design together.

For example, suppose your audience is CEOs for corporate businesses. In that case, they won't want to hang a calendar in their office with neon colors and playful design elements. Instead, a sleek, professional design will catch their interest. In addition, if your veterinarian clinic is looking to send out a calendar, start the design process earlier and ask your clients to send photos of their pets to be featured. Who wouldn't hang up and use a calendar that includes a picture of their pet?

Timing is Everything

Suppose the other companies who send your audience a calendar also have a design your audience loves. In that case, timing is everything. Make sure to send or hand out your calendars early so your recipients have them on hand, and even write down personal dates before receiving a calendar from other companies. A reasonable time frame to plan for your audience to have your physical calendar is around November to December. In addition, designing and ordering your calendars early ensures that your calendars don't arrive after the year has already started, risking your calendar being obsolete.

Include Your Logo on Every Month

While promotional calendars offer amazing brand exposure, your calendar recipients must be exposed to your brand each month. Having your logo and company name on just the cover of your calendar is not enough. Place your branded elements on every spread or page to ensure your audience is exposed to your brand every month and every day they check their calendar.

Include a Call to Action on Every Month

Give your audience something to respond to each month. For example, a retail store could feature winter must-haves with a coupon code for 15% off during December. A lawn care company could share a snippet during a typically dry month with a call to action telling their audience to give them a call so they take care of their lawn, or a private practice could include a reminder for flu vaccinations with a link to their scheduling portal to make an appointment.

Use QR Codes

There are many benefits to QR codes in print, including the ability to track responses, they offer an interactive way for your audience to engage with your brand, and they are an instant bridge to digital channels. Because of this, include a QR code for every month to engage and interact with your audience. Some examples of what you could have are including facts about how a specific service you offer can benefit your calendar recipient with a QR code that leads to your service page for them to request a quote. In addition, retail stores can feature seasonal products with QR codes linking to their product pages. Nonprofit organizations can include QR codes to sign up for seasonal charity events or QR codes that direct to a donation page with a snippet of the good work they provided their community that month last year.

Take Advantage of a Calendar Design Template

Creating a table that includes the days for each month in order and national and religious holidays is a lot of work. On top of that, you need to account for the printing requirements, including page order, bleed, and margin space. A lot goes into making a promotional calendar, so to make the process easier, you can take advantage of a calendar design template that includes the proper printing design requirements and the months, dates, and holidays.

Feel free to take advantage of our free calendar templates, which include a PDF that you can place into your design software with the proper months, dates, and holidays, our customizable InDesign file, or our calendar online design tool, where you can upload your artwork.

Choose The Right Printer

Once you have your calendar design prepared, full of marketing touchpoints, and your logo, you're ready to get them printed. When looking for a printer, look for one who offers fast speeds so you can get your calendars in your audience's hands quickly, high-quality materials so your calendar lasts all year and represents your company professionally, and affordable prices so you can stay within budget while generating an amazing ROI.

In addition, if you're planning to mail your calendars to your audience rather than as handouts, look for a printer offering direct mail services. By doing so, they'll be able to mail your calendars directly into your audience's mailboxes as soon as they are printed.

If you're ready to get your custom calendars printed, head to our calendar product page for an instant quote today! Have questions or need assistance? We're here to help. Contact our experts via email at customerservice@conquestgraphics.com, call 800-707-9903, or chat with us using our live chat pop-up.