Finding commercial print customers locally, not online resellers

3 days ago
3 min read

Introduction

A local printer cannot beat an online trade printer on price per thousand and should stop trying. The web presses run enormous volumes at margins a small shop cannot approach, and a customer who only wants the cheapest business cards was never going to be a customer worth having.

What the online printers cannot do is turn artwork around in an afternoon, fix a file that arrives broken, deliver by hand before an event, or know what a customer ordered last year. Those are local advantages and they are worth paying for.

Finding customers who value them means aiming at organisations with deadlines and no design department.

Finding commercial print customers locally starts with who has deadlines

Urgency is where a local printer wins.

Target the organisations with fixed dates. Schools, estate agents, event organisers, churches, clubs, theatres, councils. All of them need something printed by a specific day. A missed deadline costs them more than the print.

Sell the turnaround, not the price. Same-day and next-day capability is the argument. Say it plainly in every conversation. Put the cut-off time on your own material.

Be somewhere they can walk in. A customer with a problem at four o'clock wants a person, not a support ticket. Keep the counter staffed.

Aim at the businesses with recurring print

One-off jobs are work; repeat jobs are a business.

Estate and letting agents. Boards, brochures, window cards, tenancy packs. Continuous, deadline-driven and local by nature. One agency can be a substantial account.

Restaurants and pubs. Menus change seasonally and get damaged constantly. This is a repeating order with a reliable cycle. Diarise the seasons and contact them first.

Trades and contractors. Vehicle graphics, signage, site boards, forms and stationery. They also refer each other readily. Do one job well and the site next door hears about it.

Schools and clubs. Newsletters, programmes, kit, event material. Budgeted, annual, and loyal to a supplier who does not let them down. Budgets are set annually, so get in before they are.

Sell the services that need proximity

Some print work is inherently local.

Large format and signage. Boards, banners, vehicle graphics and exhibition material are awkward to ship and often need fitting. Offer the fitting as well as the print.

Finishing and short runs. Ten of something, finished properly, tomorrow. No online printer wants that order and every business needs it occasionally. Price short runs to be worth doing.

Design and artwork help. Most small businesses have no designer and their files are unusable. Charging to fix that is a service, not an inconvenience. Quote it as a line rather than absorbing it.

Win the account, not the job

The first order is a trial.

Deliver the first job perfectly and early. Businesses change printers because somebody let them down. Be the one who does not. Deliver it a day early if you can.

Keep their files and their history. Reordering should take one phone call and no artwork discussion. That convenience is what stops them shopping around. Keep a record of stock, colours and quantities.

Contact them before they need it. Menus before the season, brochures before the event, stationery before it runs out. Anticipation is the whole relationship.

Conclusion

Stop competing on price per thousand and compete on the things the online presses cannot do: turnaround, fixing broken files, hand delivery and remembering what a customer ordered last year.

Aim at the organisations that work to fixed dates — schools, agents, event organisers, clubs — and at the businesses whose print recurs, like restaurants with seasonal menus and agents with window cards. Sell the large format, short-run and finishing work that nobody wants to ship, charge properly for artwork help, then win the account rather than the job by delivering the first order early, keeping their files so reordering takes one call, and contacting them before they need you.