The printing industry stands at a crossroads. After decades of steady decline in traditional print volumes, forward-thinking print shop owners are discovering that their existing customer relationships hold the key to sustainable growth—not through more printing, but by becoming trusted marketing resources for the businesses they already serve.

This isn’t about abandoning print. It’s about recognizing that the same local businesses who need your banners, business cards, and brochures also need digital marketing support—and they’d rather get it from someone they already trust.

The Market Landscape: Understanding the Shift

The commercial printing industry tells two parallel stories. On one side, revenue from traditional publishing and advertising print work continues its multi-decade decline, with the U.S. printing industry experiencing revenue declines at a compound annual rate of 2.8% over recent years. Digital media’s dominance has fundamentally altered how businesses allocate marketing budgets.

On the other side, print service providers who have diversified their offerings are thriving. According to NAPCO Research’s 2024 survey, 74% of commercial printers have already expanded their services beyond traditional printing, with 65% planning to expand product offerings and 64% aiming to diversify production capabilities within the next 12 to 24 months.

Meanwhile, the small business marketing landscape is exploding. Digital marketing spending among small and medium-sized businesses grew 10% between 2023 and 2024, with the global digital advertising and marketing market projected to reach $786.2 billion by 2026. Small businesses are hungry for marketing help—and they’re actively looking for partners who understand their operations.

Marketing Resource vs. Marketing Agency: A Critical Distinction

Before exploring this opportunity, let’s establish an important distinction. A print shop expanding into marketing services is not becoming a marketing agency. The difference matters enormously for your business model, staffing, and customer relationships.

As a marketing resource, you’re positioned to offer practical, execution-focused services that directly serve your existing B2B customers—not to compete with full-service agencies for complex campaign strategy work.

Why Your B2B Customers Need This From You

Here’s what makes this opportunity unique for print shops: you already have trusted relationships with local businesses who desperately need marketing support.

Consider what your typical B2B customer faces. They know they need a better website, updated social media presence, and consistent digital content—but they don’t know where to start. Research shows that 81% of B2B buyers prioritize trust above all other considerations when choosing business partners. That trust doesn’t transfer easily to a faceless agency found through a Google search. But it already exists with you.

Small businesses commonly outsource accounting, IT services, and digital marketing—with marketing being the service they’re most likely to seek external help for. Yet many struggle to find reliable partners. Around 40% of SMBs outsource digital marketing, but satisfaction rates remain mixed. Your existing relationship gives you a competitive advantage that agencies spend years trying to build.

Services That Make Sense for Print Shops

Not every marketing service fits naturally with a print operation. Focus on services that leverage your existing capabilities:

• Logo design and brand identity: Your designers already understand visual branding. Formalizing logo design services creates a natural entry point for broader marketing work.
• Website design and hosting: Modern website builders make it possible to offer professional sites without massive development overhead. Your design team’s skills translate directly.
• Content creation: The copywriting skills used for brochures and marketing collateral extend naturally to blog posts, email newsletters, and social content.
• Social media content and management: Visual content creation is something your team already does. Adapting that work for social platforms is a logical extension.
• Basic SEO services: Local SEO—helping businesses show up in local searches—is achievable without deep technical expertise and directly benefits your B2B customers.
• Integrated print-digital campaigns: This is where print shops have a unique advantage. Combining direct mail with digital follow-up delivers superior results.

Research shows that campaigns combining digital and direct mail strategies see a 28% increase in conversion rates and significantly higher response rates. Your ability to execute both halves of that equation is a genuine competitive differentiator.

The Seamless Transition: Leveraging What You Already Have

The path from print shop to marketing resource doesn’t require starting from scratch. The key is recognizing—and building upon—the assets already in your operation.

Your Design Team

You already employ graphic designers who understand brand consistency, visual hierarchy, and professional output standards. These skills translate directly to digital marketing work. A designer who creates compelling print collateral can create social media graphics, website visuals, and email templates with relatively minimal additional training.

Your Customer Knowledge

You know your customers’ businesses, their target audiences, and their brand guidelines. This institutional knowledge would take an outside agency months to develop. When you suggest a social media strategy or website update, you’re building on years of understanding their brand.

Your Production Workflow

Print shops operate on deadlines, manage complex projects, and maintain quality control systems. These operational capabilities support marketing service delivery without reinventing your business processes.

Your Local Market Presence

You understand the local business landscape, seasonal patterns, and community dynamics. This local knowledge is invaluable for marketing services that depend on understanding the customer’s market context.

Building vs. Starting: A Realistic Assessment

Every business expansion involves trade-offs. Understanding the real challenges—and comparing them against your existing advantages—helps you make informed decisions.

The companies most successful at service expansion approach it incrementally. They start with one or two services that naturally extend their current capabilities, prove the model with existing customers, then gradually expand based on actual demand and demonstrated competence.

Understanding Your Customer Base: The Foundation

Before adding marketing services, take stock of your existing B2B relationships. Not every customer is a candidate for expanded services, and understanding who needs what prevents wasted effort.

Consider which customers order print materials regularly. These businesses clearly invest in marketing and are likely candidates for digital services that complement their print work. Think about who asks questions beyond their print order—questions about website updates, social media, or digital advertising suggest unmet needs you could address.

Identify customers whose print materials you’ve designed from scratch. These relationships demonstrate trust in your creative judgment that extends naturally to digital work. Also note which businesses have grown with your help over time. Long-term relationships provide the foundation for honest conversations about expanded services.

The Integration Opportunity

Print shops have one advantage that pure digital agencies cannot replicate: the ability to seamlessly integrate physical and digital marketing. This isn’t a small thing—it’s increasingly what sophisticated marketers want.

Direct mail campaigns paired with digital follow-up deliver substantially higher response rates than either channel alone. QR codes on printed materials drive traffic to digital destinations. Printed collateral reinforces digital brand presence. This integration requires someone who understands both worlds—and can execute in both. That’s you.

A Practical Path Forward

Expanding into marketing services doesn’t require a dramatic transformation or massive investment. Consider a measured approach that builds on proven demand.

Start by formalizing design services you may already provide informally. If you’ve designed logos or brand materials as part of print projects, make these standalone offerings with clear pricing. Next, identify two or three customers who would benefit from basic website or social media services. Offer pilot projects at favorable terms to build experience and case studies.

Invest in training for your design team in areas like basic web design platforms, social media content creation, and email marketing tools. These skills build incrementally on existing competencies. Document your processes as you develop them. What works for one customer likely applies to others, and systematized delivery enables growth.

The Financial Picture: Conservative Revenue Projections

Adding marketing services isn’t just about serving customers better—it’s about building meaningful new revenue streams. Using publicly available pricing data for U.S. marketing services, let’s examine what these services could realistically contribute to your bottom line.

Service-by-Service Revenue Potential

Based on 2024 industry pricing benchmarks, here’s what print shops can reasonably charge for marketing services—using conservative estimates at the lower-to-mid range of market rates:

The market data is clear: small businesses pay $500 to $1,500 monthly for basic social media management, $500 to $2,500 monthly for local SEO services, and $2,000 to $10,000 for custom website design. These aren’t inflated agency rates—they’re what businesses across America pay for professional marketing support.

The Power of Recurring Revenue

The most transformative aspect of marketing services isn’t the one-time project fees—it’s the recurring monthly revenue from ongoing services. Unlike a print job that’s complete when it ships, website hosting, social media management, and SEO services generate predictable monthly income.

10-Customer Scenario: A Conservative Projection

Let’s calculate the potential annual gross revenue impact if just 10 of your existing B2B customers engage with your new marketing services. Using conservative rates at the lower end of market pricing:

The Recurring Revenue Advantage

Notice the breakdown: of the $165,550 in first-year revenue, $133,800 (81%) comes from recurring services. In Year Two and beyond—assuming the same 10 customers continue their subscriptions—you’d generate recurring revenue without repeating one-time setup projects. That’s predictable, monthly cash flow that compounds as you add customers.

The Bottom Line

The printing industry’s challenges are real, but they’re also creating genuine opportunities for owners willing to evolve their service model. Your existing customers need marketing help. They already trust you. You already have skilled designers and established relationships.

Becoming a marketing resource—not a marketing agency, but a trusted partner who can help with practical marketing execution—lets you serve customer needs that otherwise go unmet or get sent to unfamiliar agencies. It’s not about abandoning print; it’s about extending the value you provide to businesses that already depend on you.

The print shops that thrive in the coming decade will be those that recognize their true value proposition: not just ink on paper, but helping local businesses succeed through effective visual communication—wherever that communication happens.