Every small print business owner reading this has spent money chasing new customers. You have run ads, attended networking events, handed out cards, and watched your marketing budget disappear without a lot to show for it. And yet, sitting right there in your customer database, there is a goldmine you are walking past every single day.
Your existing customers already know you, already trust you, and have already given you money. That is three enormous hurdles you do not have to clear when you want to make a sale. So, before you spend another pound on cold outreach, ask yourself this: do your existing customers actually know everything you can do for them?
The answer, almost certainly, is no. And that gap between what they know and what you offer is costing you real money every single month.
The Knowledge Problem Nobody Talks About
Here is how it works in practice. A customer comes to you for business cards. You produce great print work, they are happy, and they come back for more business cards, and maybe leaflets. That is it though. In their mind, you are the printing company, they have no idea you also produce exhibition banners, branded workwear, vehicle graphics, promotional merchandise, large-format signage, and a dozen other things they are probably already buying from someone else.
This is not their fault, it’s yours. You don’t have a marketing problem; you have a communication problem.
You have not told them because you “assumed” they knew. After all, your website and brochure clearly show all this… you have been so focused on delivering the order in front of you that you have never stepped back and shown them the full picture of what you can do. And so, they go to three different suppliers for three different needs, while you sit there wondering why growth is so hard.
Build the Matrix. Then Work It.
There is a tool so simple it will make you feel slightly embarrassed that you have not been using it already. Take a spreadsheet, put every customer down the left-hand column, then put every product and service you offer along the top row. Then go through the grid and mark which customer uses which product or service.
What you are left with is your Customer-Product Matrix, and it is one of the most powerful commercial documents your business can have. Every empty box in that grid represents a conversation you have not had yet. Every blank square is an opportunity you are leaving wide open for a competitor to walk into.
Build the Matrix and MARKET TO THE GAPS.
If you have a customer who buys roller banners and exhibition graphics from you but has never bought branded clothing, that is a gap. If you have a customer who orders printed stationery but has never asked about vehicle wraps, that is a gap. If you have a customer who comes back year after year for one product while spending money on five other things elsewhere, every single one of those is a gap.
Every product gap is a profit gap.
The Line That Changes Everything
When you start having these conversations with existing customers, marketing to the gaps you have identified, you will hear one phrase so often it will become almost comical. Over and over again, customers will say: "I never knew you did that."
Not "I tried someone else and preferred them." Not "I looked at your website and decided against it." Just "I never knew." That is the whole problem laid bare in just five words. They were not disloyal, they were not difficult, they just did not know. And because they did not know, the money went elsewhere.
The Customer-Product Matrix makes sure that never happens again. It turns a vague intention to "upsell more" into a structured, systematic programme of targeted communication with real customers who have already demonstrated they are willing to buy from you. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
You can reach out by email, by phone, or even just by mentioning it on the next order. "By the way, I notice we have never done your vehicle graphics. That is something we handle here. Can I send you a few examples?"
That is all it takes. You are not cold calling; you are calling someone who already has your number in their phone and has already spent money with you. The conversion rate on those conversations will dwarf anything you are seeing from cold outreach.
Here Is Your Next Step
Do not put this down and carry on as you were. Open a spreadsheet today, then list your top twenty customers down the left side. List every product and service you offer across the top. Spend an hour filling in what you know. Then look at the gaps… MARKET TO THE GAPS.
Pick three customers with obvious gaps and reach out to them this week, CALL THEM.
Not with a newsletter or a generic email. Pick up the phone or send a personal message that shows you have looked at what they buy and noticed what they are missing.
One conversation could be worth thousands of pounds. You already have the customers; you already have the capability. The only thing missing is the conversation.
Stop leaving money on the table that should already be yours.
Follow Stuart Mason www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-c-mason
• Podcast https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stuart-mason2
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