Why Do So Many Printing Companies Fail to Market Themselves?

Why Are We the 'Shoemaker's Children'? — Why Most Commercial Printing Companies Fail at Their Own Marketing

It’s the oldest cliché in the book: "The shoemaker's children have no shoes."

In the commercial print industry, this saying is painfully true. We are an industry of master craftspeople. We produce stunning, tactile, high-impact marketing materials for everyone else. We create intricate die-cuts, irresistible packaging, and glossy brochures that help our clients win new business.

But when it comes to our own marketing? We do nothing!

Our websites often look like they were built in 2005. Our social media channels are ghost towns. We rely on a "word-of-mouth" strategy that is really just a "hope-and-pray" strategy.

This is no longer sustainable. Commercial print companies are closing their doors, because their sales pipeline is empty. And it's empty because they have completely failed at marketing.

The excuses are always the same. They may be the same ones you've used yourself:

1. "I don't have the time."
2. "I don't have the money."
3. "It doesn't even work for a B2B business like mine."

This post is a dose of tough love. We’re going to dismantle each of these excuses and replace them with practical, low-cost, and effective strategies you can start using today. It’s time for the shoemaker to finally make some shoes.

Myth No. 1: 'I Don't Have Time to Market My Print Business'

The Symptom: The "Busy" Trap

Let’s be honest, running a print shop is organized chaos. You’re bouncing between quoting complex jobs, managing press schedules, putting out client fires, ordering paper stocks, and dealing with a shipping issue. Marketing is always on the to-do list, but it’s never at the top.

It falls into the "important, but not urgent" category. The urgent tasks (like a press-down situation) will always win.

The result is a vicious feast-or-famine cycle. You're slammed with work, so you have "no time" to market. Then, the big jobs dry up, and you panic. You suddenly try to "do marketing" out of desperation, which never works. You get a few small jobs, get busy again, and the cycle repeats.

The Counter-Argument: You're Thinking About Marketing Wrong

You don’t have time for inefficient marketing. You’re trying to do everything at once instead of doing one or two things well.

Marketing isn't a one-time event, it's a consistent process, like preventative maintenance on your press. You don't wait for the press to break to service it. So why wait for your sales to break to do marketing?

Here’s how to fix the time problem.

• Batch Your Work - You don't need to post on social media every day. You don't need to write a blog post every week. Set aside four hours, once a month. In that time, you can write one or two blog posts, schedule 10 to 12 social media posts based on it, and design one email newsletter using the blog posts. Then, you're done for the month.
• Focus on ONE Channel - You don't need to constantly be on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. For most B2B commercial printers, your audience is on LinkedIn. Forget the rest. Commit to posting a few updates a week and spending 10 minutes a day engaging with prospects. That's it.
• Automate What You Can - Use a free or low-cost scheduler like Buffer, Hootsuite or Pryntbase to automate your social posts. Use an email provider like Mailchimp to set up a simple automated "welcome" sequence for new prospects.
• Repurpose, Don't Re-create - This is the most important tip. That one cool project you just finished for a client? (Get their permission first!) That one piece of work is now …
  1. A beautiful post for your LinkedIn.
  2. A new entry in your website's digital portfolio.
  3. A "Project of the Month" feature for your email newsletter.
  4. A physical sample you can mail to high-value prospects.

One piece of content, four different uses. That’s how you save time.

Myth No. 2: 'I Don't Have the Money for a Marketing Budge'

The Symptom: Confusing "Marketing" with "Expensive Ads"

When a print owner hears "marketing," they think of a $20,000 trade show booth, a $5,000 full-page ad in a business journal, or a $10,000-a-month Google Ads budget.

Cash flow is tight. Printing is a capital-intensive business. When things get lean, the non-existent marketing budget is the first "expense" to be cut.

This is a critical error in thinking. Marketing is not an expense. It is an investment in future revenue. And the most powerful marketing you can do today is either free or incredibly low-cost.

The Counter-Argument: Your Best Marketing Tools Are Free

You don't need a huge budget. You need to leverage the tools already at your disposal.

• Your Google Business Profile (GBP) - This is the single most important free marketing tool for a local or regional print company. Go claim and optimize it right now. Fill out every single section. Add your service areas. Upload 20+ photos of your shop, your team, your equipment, and your best work. Use the "Updates" feature to post new projects. Why? Because when a local marketing manager searches "commercial printer near me," this is what they will see first.
• Your Expertise (Content Marketing) - You are a print expert. Your customers are not. They are confused about paper weights, color profiles (RGB vs. CMYK), and finishes. Share your expertise. Write one simple blog post a month answering a common customer question:
  • "Gloss vs. Matte vs. Uncoated: Which Paper is Right for Your Project?"
  • "The 5 Most Common File Prep Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)"
  • "What is Variable Data Printing and How Can it 3x Your Direct Mail ROI?" This builds incredible trust and, over time, massive SEO value.
• Your Existing Client List (Email Marketing) - You have a list of hundreds or thousands of past and current clients. This is a goldmine you are ignoring. Send them one email newsletter a month. Not a salesy one. A helpful one. Feature a "Project of the Month," share your new blog post, or offer a "Pro-Tip of the Month." It keeps you top-of-mind, generates easy repeat business, and is practically free.
• Your Happy Customers (Social Proof) - A 5-star Google review is more powerful than any ad you can buy. Systematize asking for them. Every time you complete a job and the client is happy, send them a direct link to your Google Business Profile and say, "We'd be so grateful if you could take 30 seconds to share your experience."

Total cost for all four of these strategies? $0.

Myth No. 3: 'Marketing Doesn't Work for a B2B Print Company like Print'

The Symptom: "All My Business is Word-of-Mouth"

This is the most dangerous myth of all. "All my business comes from word-of-mouth and relationships" is a fantastic way to go out of business.

Word-of-mouth is great, but it's uncontrollable and unscalable. What happens when your top three clients get acquired, hire a new marketing director who has their "guy," or go bankrupt? Your business is instantly on life support.

This myth is born from a misunderstanding. Many printers have tried marketing, they "tried Facebook ads" or sent one batch of generic postcards, got no response, and declared, "See? It doesn't work."

They believe print is a commodity, and decisions are only made on price and a handshake. They're wrong.

The Counter-Argument… You're Doing the Wrong Marketing

Your marketing "failed" because you were doing it wrong. You were selling the wrong thing to the wrong people.

Stop Selling "Print." Start Selling "Solutions." Your B2B customer doesn't wake up thinking, "I need to buy 5,000 tri-fold brochures." They wake up thinking, "I need to get more leads at this trade show" or "I need to make our new product launch feel high-end."

Your marketing needs to reflect this.

• Bad Marketing: "We sell brochures. 10% off!"
• Good Marketing: "Your trade show booth has 3 seconds to get a prospect's attention. A generic flyer won't cut it. Here’s a case study of how we used a soft-touch laminate and a spot UV finish to create a brochure that attendees had to pick up."

See the difference? You're not a printer; you're a lead-generation partner or a brand-elevation expert.

• Use Your Own Product (The Ultimate Proof)! The most staggering failure of all: print companies that don't use print to market themselves. You have the ultimate weapon at your disposal.
  Stop sending generic email blasts. Identify 50 high-value dream clients in your area. Create the most stunning, high-impact, lumpy, and creative direct mail piece imaginable. Use variable data to personalize it. Include a crazy finish, a unique die-cut, or a thick, tactile stock. Show them what you can do. Track the results. A 2% response rate from that list of 50 (that's one new client) could pay for the entire campaign tenfold.

Digital Marketing Validates Your Word-of-Mouth. Here’s how a B2B relationship really works today.

• Referral: Your happy client tells their friend at another company, "You should call XYZ Printing."
• Validation: What does that friend do? They Google you.
• First Impression: What do they find? An ancient website, no Google reviews, and a dead LinkedIn page? Or do they find a professional website, a gallery of beautiful work, 5-star reviews, and a helpful blog post that proves you're an expert?
• Your digital presence isn't just about finding new clients; it's about closing the clients you're already in line for.

It's Time to 'Make the Shoe' (or Market Yourself)

Your press isn't the heart of your business. Your sales pipeline is. Your press is just the tool that fulfills the promises your pipeline makes.

The problem isn't a lack of time, money, or opportunity. The problem is a lack of will and a plan.

You don't need to do everything. You just need to stop doing nothing.

Stop being the shoemaker with no shoes. Your craft is beautiful, tactile, and more important than ever in a world of digital noise. It's time to finally tell people about it.

Your homework is simple. Pick one thing from this article. Just one.

• Go spend 30 minutes optimizing your Google Business Profile.
• Write down 5 questions your clients always ask and turn one into a blog post.
• Design a simple, beautiful monthly newsletter.

Start today. Start small. But for the sake of your business, start.

Doing all or some of these tactics are guaranteed to deliver results, increase visibility, traffic, leads and sales.

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. Artificial Intelligence may have been used in part to create or edit this content.