Advertising without a strategy is just spending. Here's how to build a plan that assigns specific channels to specific objectives — and how to know when it's working.
The first question in advertising strategy isn't "should we run Google Ads or social media?" It's: what business problem are we trying to solve? The three most common advertising objectives for print companies are new customer acquisition, customer retention and growth, and vertical expansion.
Each objective requires a different channel mix and a different message. Running acquisition campaigns to your existing customer list is wasteful. Running retention campaigns to cold audiences doesn't make sense. Define the objective first and the channel selection becomes obvious.
Channels don't work in isolation — they reinforce each other. A prospect sees your LinkedIn post, searches for you on Google, lands on your blog post, subscribes to your email list, gets a nurture sequence, requests a quote. That journey touches five channels. Measuring only one of them misses how the system works.
The sections below map each channel to the right objective, cover budget allocation, and give you a framework for measuring whether your advertising is working.
Match your channel investment to your current business objective. These are the channel mixes that work for each of the three core print company advertising goals.
For reaching buyers who've never heard of you: Google Ads for immediate leads from high-intent searches, SEO for compounding organic traffic, and LinkedIn targeting by job title in your most valuable verticals. Start with PPC while SEO builds.
The highest ROI channel for existing customers is email. Seasonal campaigns, new capability announcements, re-engagement sequences for dormant accounts. A customer who hasn't ordered in 90 days is less expensive to win back than a new customer is to acquire.
Moving into a new vertical? Build industry-specific landing pages and blog content first — "print marketing for dental practices." Then run LinkedIn ads targeting job titles in that vertical. Content gives you something to send the ad traffic to.
For a $3M–$15M revenue print shop, a practical split: 20–30% on PPC (immediate leads), 30–40% on content and SEO (compounding traffic), 20% on email, 10–15% on social. Weight it toward whichever stage you're in the channel development cycle.
Advertising tactics that generate real, measurable results for commercial print shops — not generic marketing advice.
The most common print company advertising mistake: running campaigns for 2 months, stopping, starting again. Algorithms need data. Audiences need frequency. 6 months is the minimum to know if a channel works.
Don't spread PPC across every product. Find the product with the best margin-to-print-complexity ratio and build your first campaign around it.
LinkedIn allows you to serve ads to people who visited your website. These are warm prospects — they know you exist. Retargeting costs a fraction of cold LinkedIn ads.
Industry-specific directories and print trade publications still drive qualified traffic. Often underpriced relative to reach because most print shops don't advertise in them.
"10 new leads per month from Google Ads at under $80 per lead." That's a target. "Grow our business" is not. Campaigns without targets can't be optimized.
A re-engagement sequence to customers who haven't ordered in 90 days costs almost nothing and typically converts 15–25% back to active. Run this before spending on acquisition.
Generic homepage PPC traffic converts at 1–2%. Vertical-specific landing pages convert at 4–8%. The page you send traffic to matters as much as the ad itself.
Total channel spend divided by new customers from that channel. Once you know your CAC per channel, you can allocate to the most efficient ones and cut the rest.
Print customers repeat. A first order worth $400 might turn into $4,000 over two years. Evaluate channel ROI based on projected LTV, not just first conversion value.
Pryntbase runs every channel in this guide for your print shop — SEO, social, email, lead nurture, blogging, and stock photos. Pre-trained on the print industry. Set once, runs continuously.