Marketing Automation for Printing Companies in 2025

Strategy, Tools, and AI

The printing industry is unique in that there are so many aspects of print, including the types, use cases, industries, and services, as well as the wants and needs of customers in how they interact with companies in the printing industry (physical, digital, e-commerce, on-demand, etc.).

This makes it difficult for businesses in the printing industry to solidify what and how they will use marketing automation. Both the strategy and tool selection become a daunting task. Not to mention the emergence of accessible AI tools that have complicated it even further.

So I decided to pull it all together in a single article so that it is easier to discern what is right for your business.

Marketing Automation Strategy for Printing Companies

The reality is that marketing automation within the printing industry is inextricably linked to both marketing and sales. The fact that both use a CRM and in most cases should use the same centralized CRM creates the need to address both.

Marketing

Focuses on top-of-the-funnel down to mid-funnel activities: Brand, Awareness, Lead Generation, Direct Response

Marketing has the ability to be creative, get attention, and move people into the pipeline:

• Running ads that feed into the website, CRM, and phone system
• Sending mass marketing emails to your existing customer and prospect lists
• Creating nurturing workflows to warm up leads until they're ready to buy

Sales

Focuses on mid-full to bottom of the funnel activities: Quotes, Estimates, Q&A, Direct Response, Transactional Sales Engagements

Sales teams benefit from automation through:

• Quoting and estimating workflows
• Automated follow-ups and reminders
• Pipeline movement and deal status updates

It can be a good idea to marry both the sales team and marketing team to integrate more 1:1 automation that is personalized and is a good mix of attention getting and sales messages that can shorten the time to purchase.

The overlap comes mid-funnel where marketing needs to hand off to sales. So you must create a clear delineation as to when sales takes over for marketing automation to be effective within your printing organization. It gets really messy if you don’t.

Marketing Automation Tools for Printing Companies

Here I am listing the most common marketing automation tools that printing companies should use along with information on the sales side of it all as well. It’s a fact that each has pros and cons to them, as well as some catering to print more than others.

Combination Marketing & Sales Automation Platforms

These tools are primarily marketing focused but also have sales components or potential baked into them. Let’s explore the pros and cons of each, and see how they cater to print service providers (PSPs).

Hubspot

HubSpot is a powerhouse for both marketing and sales automation. It integrates CRM, email marketing, lead scoring, forms, sales pipelines, and reporting in one ecosystem. Its visual automation builder makes it easy to create sophisticated workflows.

Pros for Printing Companies:

• Excellent for lead nurturing and lifecycle tracking
• Customizable quoting and form tools
• Integration options with Print MIS systems
• Scales well from small to large teams

Cons:

• Expensive for most PSPs
• Longer contract periods

ActiveCampaign

Known for its email marketing roots, ActiveCampaign excels at automated sequences and behavior-based actions. It also offers a built-in CRM for small to mid-sized businesses.

Pros:

• Affordable and powerful for email automation
• Great conditional logic and split testing
• Useful for recurring campaigns like reorders or abandoned quote follow-ups

Cons:

• CRM is basic compared to dedicated platforms
• Less intuitive when building complex workflows

Salesforce Marketing Cloud / Salesforce Sales Cloud

Salesforce is enterprise-level and highly customizable, suited for large commercial printers or networks of locations.

Pros:

• Unparalleled customization for workflow automation
• Deep integrations with quoting and inventory tools
• Powerful AI (Einstein) for predictive insights

Cons:

• Cost cost get very high using this platform
• Extremely complex the more customized your setup is
• Requires technical help or consultants to fully leverage

Zoho CRM + Zoho Marketing Automation

Zoho provides solid tools at an affordable price. Their ecosystem includes CRM, campaigns, website chat, and even quoting tools. More recently they have introduced AI tools into their offering.

Pros:

• Budget-friendly for smaller print shops
• Easily integrates with other Zoho tools
• Offers decent automation and email sequences

Cons:

• UI can feel clunky and less intuitive
• Some tools feel underpowered compared to competitors

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is popular with ecommerce-focused businesses and shines with segmentation and triggered email flows. The email marketing capabilities are good.

Pros:

• Great for print shops with online ordering/ecommerce
• Powerful analytics and behavior-based flows
• Easy Shopify integration for Web-to-print

Cons:

• Limited CRM and sales automation features
• Geared more toward DTC ecommerce brands like apparel or promo

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most recognized email platforms, best for basic marketing automation. This platform should be seen as more of a jumping off point or for limited CRM use by printing companies.

Pros:

• Easy to use and affordable
• Great for newsletters, promotions, and simple drips

Cons:

• No true CRM
• Not robust enough for full-funnel automation

Constant Contact

Similar to Mailchimp, it’s a lightweight email marketing tool that doesn’t have a dedicated CRM. You can send email marketing messages, collect contact records and keep them updated.

Pros:

• Simple and quick to launch
• Good for basic customer communications
• Low price point

Cons:

• Lacks CRM and in-depth automation
• Not built for mid-funnel or sales handoffs

Sales Focused Automation Tools

You can also find tools that primarily cater to the sales side of your printing business. These are typically used in combination with other marketing automation tools to ensure you can cover the full spectrum of marketing to sales effectively.

Additionally many of these sales tools listed heavily promote their AI capabilities.

ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo provides contact databases, enrichment, and outreach automation.

They have been at this a long time and continue to develop their platform. ZoomInfo is likely familiar to you as they work with a lot of printing companies.

Pros:

• Powerful B2B contact discovery and enrichment
• Lead scoring and routing for high-volume sales
• Built-in intent signals and AI-powered workflows

Cons:

• Very expensive, unfortunately
• Best suited for outbound-heavy sales teams
• Some feature limitations that you might not expect to find

Apollo.io

Apollo combines lead generation, outreach, and sequencing in one platform.

Apollo is also one of the top AI driven sales platforms that is simplifying prospecting and lead nurturing for printing businesses.

Pros:

• Strong for cold email and outbound automation
• AI for personalization and segmentation
• Contact scraping tools for targeting specific verticals

Cons:

• Smaller database than ZoomInfo
• Can be overwhelming without a clear sales process
• Also expensive

Reply.io

Reply.io specializes in multichannel sales sequences and virtual sales reps to automate and simplify your outbound lead gen, prospecting and follow up. As a PSP, off-loading this up front work is extremely helpful.

Pros:

• Integrates email, LinkedIn, calling, and SMS
• Strong personalization and AI templates
• Works well with CRMs and other tools
• More affordable than other options

Cons:

• Less useful for inbound-driven shops
• Smaller learning curve, but still requires strategy

Print Specific Marketing & Sales Automation Tools

These platforms have some marketing and sales automation capabilities and some of them overlap with the functionality of the other marketing automation tools I’ve talked about so far. But they can also integrate into your third-party marketing automation tools, allowing you to control which platforms do what for you.

Plan Prophet

PlanProphet is a powerful CRM and automation platform specifically designed for printing businesses. It's built to streamline operations, enhance customer engagement, and drive growth for printing shops.

Capabilities:

• Email automations (quotes, follow-ups, reorders)
• CRM and customer dashboards
• Customer surveys and satisfaction tools
• Built on the Salesforce infrastructure, but it can connect to any print MIS

Overlaps:

• Combines lightweight CRM, email marketing, and quoting follow-ups
• Can integrate with HubSpot, Mailchimp, and others for extended features

PrintSmith

The PrintSmith platform, specifically PrintSmith Vision, is a widely used Print Management Information System (MIS) developed by eProductivity Software (ePS), which was formerly part of EFI. It's designed to be a comprehensive software solution for small to mid-sized PSPs, including quick printers, digital print shops, sign and display businesses, in-plant facilities, and franchise printers.

Capabilities:

• Automated job status updates
• Invoicing and reordering workflows
• Built-in pricing and estimation tools

Overlaps:

Integrates with external CRMs or email platforms for full marketing & automation functionality

Print Speak

Print Speak is a business intelligence, customer management, and marketing automation platform specifically designed for the printing industry. It aims to help printing businesses leverage their existing data to drive sales, improve efficiency, and enhance customer relationships.

Capabilities:

• Visual dashboards for lead and quote tracking
• Customer portal with reordering tools
• Sales reporting and pipeline management

Overlaps:

• Offers basic marketing automation
• Works well when paired with a strong email or ad tool

Printer’s Plan

Like PrintSmith, this is Print Management Information System (MIS) designed to help printing shops of various sizes manage their entire workflow and operations. It's offered by Print Reach, a company specializing in software solutions for the printing and mailing industry.

Capabilities:

• Estimating, order processing, job tracking
• Some workflow automation for status and notifications

Overlaps:

Often paired with tools like PlanProphet or Zoho for more complete marketing coverage

AI and Marketing Automation Tactics & Tips

AI is the hot topic on the block and I am personally doing a lot of work in the AI space for printing companies such as building custom tools, agents and integrating that into marketing and sales workflows. But when it comes to automation, AI can play a big role in your success.

Here, I’ll talk through some of what you likely know a little about and then other areas that you are less familiar with which can significantly improve your marketing and sales efforts.

AI for Research

There are a number of AI platforms out there you can use to do research. The good news is that most of them have access to good data and will give you good answers. But the best answers come from the best questions.

So it’s my advice that you ask an AI agent what questions you should ask them to achieve the best results on the thing you are researching. This will provide you with a good foundation of moving forward with your research.

Writing Using AI

You are likely very familiar with using tools like Gemini and ChatGPT.

This is great, but you’ll find that many of the automation and sales tools you currently use or will use in the future have AI writing capabilities built into them, so you don’t necessarily need to have separate platforms for this.

You can, however, centralize, train, and guide AI writing for your printing business in a more governed way by utilizing outside AI writing platforms.

Sales and Prospecting Paired With AI

Again this can be found inside many of the Print AI Sales tools I listed earlier on in the article. But you can also do this in the commonly accessed AI tools as well. The goal is to be able to curate good prospect data and then put it to use.

The AI sales tools can do both, but they come with a much higher cost.

If you have high sales activity then you should probably invest in something like Apollo to get the most out of your AI sales efforts.

Efficiency for Printing Companies Driven by AI

Lastly, using AI can make things more efficient in general when it comes to marketing and sales. But something that is often overlooked is that AI tools for creating web apps, plugins, or small functions that can really propel your sales and marketing efforts can be created very quickly and easily. No code necessary.

Your creativity in thinking about problems and solutions within your marketing and sales automation functions is the only limitation.

To be honest, I could go on and on with more detail, more tools and more strategies, but all good things must come to an end. By aligning strategy across marketing and sales, choosing the right tools for your business, and integrating AI thoughtfully, you’ll set your company up to attract more leads, close more deals, and save time in the process.

The ultimate goal? To turn your printing business into a modern, revenue-generating machine, one automated and intelligent workflow at a time.

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions.