Buying Guide: New Year Executive Diary

New Year Diary is the most common product used by many office staff and employees across the world. As defined by Wikipedia, Diary contains space for each day of the year with room for notes. Since it is being used by office staff, it is also known as 'Executive Diary' or 'Business Diary'. As this is given during the New Year, it is also called as 'New Year Diary'. Since Diary is used throughout the year, it is the most famous New Year Gift given by Companies around the world. If you do branding, it promotes your brand for the whole year. Hence, Companies spend huge money for gifting New Year Executive Diaries every year. 

There are many features available in a Diary. Every feature will add to the cost. So it is very important to pick up right feature for you. It is also important to understand all the features available and its impact on cost. 

In this article, we will help you to look at important aspects of Diary, before you spend your hard earned money. This will help you to pay for what you need and optimize your cost.

Why Diary is So Important?

Diary is a product, which almost all working people use throughout the year, every day. It has maximum utility to the person who uses to make notes and appointments. So if you do branding on the Diary and offer it to your customer / employee, your brand will be recalled every time, the user is using your diary. So Diary promotes your brand throughout the year, every day. Hence Diary is the most favorite New Year Gift among companies, across the world.

Now, Let us look at various factors which should be considered while buying Executive Diary:

Cover

Cover is the most important element while buying Diary. Cover is most visible part of Diary. Since Diary is used throughout the year, it is important that Cover resembles your Company brand. Many companies pick up Diaries matching with their logo of the Company.

Cover is made of Paper, Leather or Rexine. Pure Genuine Leather Diaries are exorbitantly costly and hence people usually do not prefer it. If you have lust for Leather, you may look at Rexine cover Diaries. However, Paper cover is quite famous as well as cost effective. It offers wide options of colors and designs. On the other hand, Rexine covers look premium and are a bit costlier.

Paper Quality

Paper Quality is the second most important factor. Paper quality can be measured in terms of GSM (Grams per Square Meter). Higher the GSM, thicker will be the paper. Higher

GSM, paper will be of high quality. At the same time, Higher GSM paper will make Diary bulkier and heavy. Simultaneously, higher GSM paper is also costly, so you need to keep a fine balance between cost, weight and paper quality.

Many people try to make judgement over paper quality themselves, by feel of the paper. It’s a Common Mistake which many of us do. We should remember that we are not paper experts. We are not better than the machines, which determine quality of papers accurately. Hence we should avoid judging the quality. We may not be as accurate as machines. We should always enquire about paper GSM from Diary supplier and then make judgements about quality of paper.

Size

Standard size of the New Year Diary is 190mm x 250mm. However there are different size of Diaries available in the market, to suit your preference. For example, some people prefer smaller Diary. If people are travelling a lot, carrying a smaller Diary becomes most convenient. Space offered by this diary, for writing notes, will be limited and hence you cannot make lengthy notes in this Executive Diary. However this offers great convenience in terms of mobility. There are other sizes also available in the market. Pick up the right size of Diary for you. Standard size Diary will be cheaper than non-standard size diaries. It is suggested to pick standard size rather than odd size Diary.

Weight

Weight of the Diary is important, as it is being used for the whole year. It should not be bulky to carry. It should not take too much of space as well. Weight is the function of Size, Cover and Paper Quality. Higher the GSM of Paper, higher will be the weight. Big size Diary will be heavier than small size. Rexine cover Diary will be heavier than paper cover Diary. Hence you need to maintain a fine balance between all these factors.

Branding

When Companies give Diary as a Corporate Gift, branding becomes most important aspect to be considered. Branding should be done on cover. Hence it is very important to pick up right color, design of the cover. Color of Diary cover and Color of your Logo should be in contrast and should not merge in each other. For example, your company logo is Red color, if you pick Diary with Red Color, then your company logo will merge in the color of Diary and will not be visible. So either you print your logo in White, or pick up a different color Diary to make your Logo visible.

Type of Branding

There are multiple options of branding. One can do Screen Printing, Digital Printing, or Embossing / Stamping. Type of Branding will depend on type of cover. If you have paper cover, you should go for Screen printing / Digital printing. If you have Rexine / Leather cover, you should go for stamping / embossing. In screen printing / Digital printing, you can print multi-color Logo of your company. On the other hand, In case of stamping / embossing, you do not have multi-color option; you can either do transparent embossing or print only 1 color. However embossing / stamping is permanent. No one can remove this. While screen printing / digital printing can be removed by force. Over time, it can also fade.

Theme of the Diary

This is another important aspect in Diary. There are many themes available in the market

e.g. Engineering, Doctor, Pharma, Green, Motivation, Success, etc. If your company is following any particular theme, you can pick up Diary with the right theme. For example, if you are gifting Diaries to Engineers, it is wise to pick up Engineers’ Diary.

Insert Additional Branding Pages

You can also insert additional pages in the Diary. If you want to print more promotional pages, you can insert additional pages in the Diary. In the ready Diary, you will have limitation. You can not add multiple pages. In the Customised Diary, you can add multiple pages at multiple locations - front, middle, back.

Customization

If you are looking for large quantity of Diaries (in excess of 500 / 1000 pcs), you can go for Customised Diary. This means that you can create your own cover, your own inside pages, etc. Everything can be customized to your requirement. Customised Diary will make it special and will stand out from Diaries which are available in the market.

Personalization

During New Year, you tend to get Diaries from many of your suppliers. Your own company

may also offer Diary to you as Employee Gift. Now you will not use all the Diaries in one go. So which one you will select? Imagine that you have received 10 Diaries, one of them has your name being printed, rest of all does not have it. Research says that humans like their name the most. In all likely chances, you will pick up Diary with your personal name printed on it. This is called Personalised Diary. All other diaries will go for re-circulation / re-distribution. This means your Diary will not be used by person, which you wanted to be. Hence this has become very important aspect now a day. Personalization will add to the cost; however Personalization on Diary ensures its usage by the intended person.

Budget

Budget is very important aspect. You may want to have Leather cover Diary, but your budget may not support this. So you can settle with Rexine cover diary. Many seller pitch Rexine cover Diaries, as Leather Diaries. Do not get carried away with such kind of miss-selling, in lure of your temptation of Leather Diary. Be watchful. You need to create a fine balance between your Needs and the Budget. Every feature of Diary will cost you. Hence select features which you really need. This way you pay for what you need and optimize your cost.

Quotes

Diary may carry inspirational / motivational quotes on each page on every date or at the beginning of every month. These are pretty useful. Many people have started demanding such Diaries now a days. Quotes on each page, acts as a morale booster and go well with your customer / employee. Hence you can opt for Diaries which has quotes on each page. It will come at marginal cost up-charge, but worth spending extra bucks.

Sunday

Sunday pages are usually half page, as most of the offices are closed on Sunday and you do not intent to make too many notes on this day. However many people look for full Sunday page. You need to assess how important is this aspect for you. Do you really need Full page or you are just asking for it, without any reason. Remember, full Sunday page, will make Diary more bulky and costly. Unless you have real need, you should not demand for full Sunday page.

Monthly Planner

At the beginning of every month, Diary may have 1 full page for the month, giving space to make some notes for the full month on single page. You can write your appointments, or mark important dates with Birthdays, Anniversary, etc. This page will have limited space for notes, so you can make only short notes. This is very useful to see events of whole month in one go.

Tabbing

Tabbing is the cuts on the side of Pages. It is usually cut by month, which means all the pages of a particular month will be cut and bundled together. It makes browsing of Diary much simpler. Tabbing is marginally costlier than the regular Diary. But it is worth to pay this additional cost.


Conclusion
As we saw, there are many features in New Year Diary. Every feature has its impact on cost of the Diary. Now let us look at all the features of New Year Executive Diary vs its impact on Cost.

Now, We have looked at all the features of New Year Executive Diary. So do Smart Buying of Diary this year. Consider all the above points before you make a buying decision for your New Year Diary.

Hope you have enjoyed reading above article and it was useful to you. We would like to hear your views. Do write back to us with your views on the above article.

Author is Proprietor of Gift Desires, which sells New Year Diaries. Views mentioned above are her personal views, gained out of her experience over the years. If you find any objectionable comments, please write back to us.