- Highlight local hot spots. Use photos related to your business or your locality. Purchase or take your own photos of local landmarks, festivals, and historic sites.
- Sell yourself month after month. Make your calendar double as a portfolio. If you restore antique dolls -- feature some of your restorations in the calendar. Is your business landscaping? Get permission from your satisfied customers to feature their yards in your calendar, along with notes and tips.
- Send monthly reminders. Guarantee that your name is seen month after month. Instead of sending out a yearly calendar in December, send a postcard calendar or a bookmark calendar each month of the year (a week or two ahead of time). Make it a picture postcard -- something new or unique -- or include monthly quotes, tips, or important industry dates.
You don't have to be a designer or hire a designer to create personalized promotional calendars. There are easy to use specialty programs that help you turn out great-looking daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly calendars for personal and business use. These specialty programs are primarily for creating calendars from your own desktop printer. To do it yourself but have the calendars professionally printed, various SOHO packages for desktop publishing are a better choice.
- Calendar Software for Windows
The granddaddy of creative calendar design is Broderbund's Calendar Creator. Other contenders are more basic but could be just what you need. - Calendar Software for Macintosh
The Print Shop, a popular Windows line of creativity software now has a Mac version that can create some nice calendars. And Nova Development's Print Explosion Deluxe comes loaded with graphics and templates for all your creative printing needs. - SOHO (Small Business) Desktop Publishing Software
If you already create your own marketing materials, chances are you already have one of these complete publishing packages. They'll work just fine for designing promotional calendars.
