Summary
Any business with a solid plan can be profitable. So, not only flex printing but with any industry, having a detailed well-prepared business plan is very important to embark on your journey.
Good news! Starting your flex printing business can really get you success in your way. Did you know the flexographic printing market is expected to rise to $181.1 billion in 2025, with a CAGR of 1.6%?
Flex banners are one of the most popular forms for outdoor advertising. Be it promotional advertising, exhibition stand printing, signage, or banners for stages, you can make some good business out of it.
We have prepared this detailed guide to help you kick-start a flex printing business.
There are two ways you can get started:
- Open a brick-and-mortar print shop and set up your entire business offline.
- Launch an online flex printing store with an online product design software product integrated.
Note: You can run offline and online businesses simultaneously if your budget allows. You can take orders online and manufacture custom products offline.
The first method is much more suitable if you have a big capital reserve to invest; the second method is ideal if you want to start your business with less capital investment. Plus, you get to reach customers globally.
With more people shopping online, there has never been a better time to start an online business. Our web-to-print storefront enables entrepreneurs to quickly take their business online. With powerful frontend and backend features, our store is equipped with a product designer tool that enables your customers to design your offerings.
Take your flex printing business online with PrintXpand. See how it would work with your estore.
Latest Trends in Flex Printing Business
With more events, promotions, and businesses looking for eye-catching displays, the demand for custom signage and labels is on the rise. If you’re thinking about starting a flex printing business, here are a few popular flex banners worth exploring.
Customized Event Signage
These days, local events, pop-up shops, and community markets are everywhere, and they’re bringing new energy to towns and neighborhoods. With all this activity, there is a huge demand for custom, eye-catching signage. That is where flex banners come in. They’re a great way for small businesses and event organizers to grab attention and get noticed.
Whether someone’s promoting a weekend flea market, a food truck fest, an art fair, or even a seasonal sale at their store, banners help them stand out and bring in more people. And because every brand wants to show off its personality, they’re looking for signs that are bold, unique, and easy to set up.
Alongside this, the classic uses for flex banners, like political rallies, sports events, charity drives, and big ad billboards, are still going strong and in demand.
By offering custom banners through an online design tool, you make it easy for your customers to create exactly what they want. They can experiment with fonts, colors, layouts, and other elements that fit their style. It’s a simple way to help them promote their ideas and a smart way for you to grow your business with products people really need.
3D and Textured Flex Prints
3D and textured flex prints are becoming one of the most exciting trends in the flex printing business. Why? Because the flat and simple banners often get lost in the crowd.
On the other hand, 3D or textured banner prints create an illusion of depth, shadows, and raised surfaces, making designs pop off and catch the viewer’s eye.
This style of printing is especially popular for premium campaigns, such as-
- Product launches in retail spaces
- Trade show and exhibition displays
- High-end fashion or tech ads
- Artistic or creative event branding
Textured prints also make people see the detail and almost feel the texture with their eyes, leaving a stronger impression. Offering the ease of designing these prints to your customers means you will definitely tap into a trendy market.
Flex Prints for Interior Decor
Many cafes, offices, salons, and even homes are using custom flex prints as wall art, ceiling wraps, or branded backdrops.
They are affordable, easy to install, and great for changing up the look of a space. Offering stylish, high-quality indoor prints lets you tap into the growing demand for unique, personalized interior decoration with a professional finish.
(A Fully Functional Sign & Poster Design Tool by PrintXpand)
Maximize your profit potential by enabling customers to design display boards, posters, and banners online.
Hence, you can see that the digital flex printing business has a great scope ahead, and you can start it to earn profits. Now that you know how the flex printing business can be a great business let’s have a look at how to start it.
Here is the Step-by-Step Guide on Starting a Flex Printing Business
1. Estimate Your Budget and Investment
When working on a flex printing business plan, there are several factors that you would need to consider to finalize the estimated cost and budget.
- For offline business: a large physical store, electricity and maintenance charges, manpower, raw materials, designing tools, packaging, shipping, etc.
- For an online business: an online website, a warehouse, or a third-party vendor—raw materials, shipping costs, an online product designer tool, a printer, etc.
In general, online flex printing business investment is less than offline. You can even cut down on manufacturing or shipping costs by tying up with a raw material supplier and a dropshipping provider who will handle your packaging, shipping, and return costs and grievances.
Once you know your expenses clearly, you can better understand and manage your budget requirements. It is good if you think you can afford all the expenses yourself. Otherwise, you can also apply for the machinery or other expenses fund.
Handpicked Related Content: How to Start Dropshipping Business with Zero Inventory
2. Registration and Licensing
No matter which business you consider – offline or online, licenses and permits are necessary. Therefore, always ensure that you have registered your business and obtained all the necessary licenses and permits based on your business.
You can get help from your state governor’s or county clerk’s office. You can also consider consulting a financial advisor to look into your business expenses and the taxes you will have to pay.
3. Setup the Store and Infrastructure
For a print business, the main machine required is a flex printing machine. There are several flex printing machines out there. However, before you buy any printing machine, check your requirements and ensure that the printer you choose has all the specifications you need.
Several printing machines let you print on various surfaces, such as wood or MDF boards. You should also have a computer along with a normal printer to view the final design.
First, you must set up your website for your online print store. There are several platforms to choose from, such as Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart, etc.
Hosting your store online would allow you to set up a web-to-print store and offer personalized flex banners to your customers—something new to win more customers!
Numerous companies, such as Vistaprint, Flexprint, Printshop, and One Printstore, offer personalized flex banners that customers can design themselves.
This gives you the freedom to offer personalized products. Your customers can create the products they want with pre-defined designs, clipart, and social media image creativity, your customers can create the products they want to.
Web to Print Solutions by PrintXpand is easily integrable with all popular eCommerce platforms. With various features and functionalities, your customers can design their favorite poster or banner in minutes using our tool.
The tool can be easily tailored as per your business needs. Share with us your requirements, and our product experts will conduct a personalized demo.
4. Location
A physical location is a must if you want to open an online store. If you are considering opening your store only at a single location, choose the site carefully. The location must be such that it attracts a large audience. Additionally, you must have specific areas for the customer desks, designing, and printing.
However, if you are thinking of launching your business online, you may not need to search for a physical location immediately. Still, if you want to store your stock products somewhere or package your final products, you will need a small warehouse or a suitable small physical space. But you don’t need to consider the location so much as it is not for customers but just for your backend operations.
5. Required Manpower/Staff/Workforce
While an offline store would need more manpower, an online print store may also require you to hire a minimum number of employees to manage of various operations.
For instance, you may need:
- A website developer or a web-to-print solutions provider
- A marketing expert to track print orders and sales, fulfill them, and form strategies to boost conversions and sales.
- An expert graphic designer handles customers’ requirements and designs custom products exactly as they want.
- A team of deliverymen, if you are thinking of delivering your products yourselves, or a dropshipping manager, if you collaborate with a dropshipping solution provider.
- A technical expert to help solve any glitches in your machinery or your web-to-print software, even if you let your customers design products themselves on your W2P storefront solution.
- A technical support team to address customers’ grievances and resolve their issues in the minimum time possible.
Your need for these workers also requires you to be at the helm of your financial operations, like managing your money to pay for their services. Payroll payout must be prompt, and the rates must be at par with those in the industry to encourage employee loyalty. It’s also advisable to keep payroll files and pay stubs for at least 12 months to comply with regulatory rules and ensure that you’ll have proof should any payout issue arise within your organization.
So, ensure you have a well-organized workforce to carry out your business operations smoothly.
Partner with an A-One team of business analysts, designers, developers, and marketers to build, manage, and grow your business.
6. Launch & Promote
Once everything is in place, it is time to start promoting your online flex printing business. Here are a few marketing tips to follow to market your printing business.
1. On-Site Optimization
For an online business, a website is like the heart and soul. It won’t be available if you don’t have a proper website properly designed and optimized for keywords. A slow-loading site can also prove to be a big put-off for customers.
So, run routine audits to ensure loading speed, keyword optimization, and several other ranking factors.
There are also several other ways that you can consider to ensure a high ranking in search results, which are as follows:
I. Resources
Keep a ‘Resources’ section on your website that can include blogs, white papers, case studies, etc. This section will help attract the audience who want to know what more you have on your site besides your products.
If they find this ‘Resources’ section really interesting, they may want to read more. Optimizing these blogs and articles for keywords can also help rank your site higher simultaneously, in addition to informing the audience and gaining traction.
(Have a resources section where users can find blog posts, ideas, testimonials, etc)
II. Website Design
Your website is your ‘first face.’ If you want your visitors to get attracted to your store, ensure that the look and feel of your site is truly immersive. Make sure that your site has all blocks and content neatly arranged and CTAs are distinct and clearly visible.
Also, keep in mind that a large number of your audience accesses the site on a smartphone or tablet, which makes it essential for your site to be mobile-friendly. A responsive design will open properly on all screens, regardless of their sizes. If your website stays undistorted across all devices, it will help your customers access the site easily and enhance their on-site experience.
Especially when you have a mobile-friendly site, see to it that you have:
- Proper and clear CTAs that customers can easily notice and click on.
- Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) if required.
- Try to avoid text-blocking ads and pop-ups.
- Perform mobile testing regularly to find and fix any run-time glitches.
For instance, if you were to look at the website of the printing giant Vistaprint, you would find it very easy to navigate. Products are categorized, and the search bar enables end-users to quickly find what they are looking for.
(Easy product search)
III. Write Compelling Product Descriptions
Catch product descriptions are a great way to grab your audience’s attention. Keep your product descriptions eye-catching, relevant, and unique, and optimize them with proper keywords.
(Detailed product description, and customer reviews to help customers take better decisions)
Similarly, you can use many other on-site optimization techniques to drive high traffic and sales based on your targets.
Build a feature-rich and user-friendly website with PrintXpand. Understand how it can work with your business.
1. Promote Your Designs
No matter how artistic and innovative your banner designs are, customers won’t buy them unless they see them. It is imperative for you to showcase your best specimens and promote them across all the possible platforms—your site, social media channels, other sites, and more.
2. Strengthen Your Bonding with Existing Customers
Every business must have the means to connect with its customers on a deeper level. A CRM software product is the need of the hour to have all your existing customers’ data at your disposal.
With all this data at your fingertips, you can easily create your marketing strategies. Whether it is email marketing, webinars, or push notifications (in case you offer a store app), you can use one or more depending on your requirements.
Once your business takes off, you can also start loyalty programs to engage your existing customers and attract new customers through good word-of-mouth. These loyalty programs can include offering gift cards, additional hidden discounts, bonus points and rewards, etc.
3. Make Social Media Your Power
Undoubtedly, social media is an important part of everyone’s life today. People spend a lot of time on social media platforms daily. Social media marketing is indispensable if you want to expand your business and let your customers notice your business
Choose one or more social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., that best suit your business plan and start promoting your brand on them.
You can go live, share blogs, showcase your latest products, announce sales, etc. to keep customers engaged throughout. Not only your existing customers but also the new audience will notice your offerings on a larger scale and can show interest in buying them.
One of the few ideas is to encourage your customers to display their banners post their pics on social media, and tag their friends and acquaintances. With more people noticing these pics, several may show interest in your brand and inquire about your offerings. And they may eventually turn into your tool.
Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Flex Printing Business
Mentioned below are some of the most creative ways to market your flex printing services locally. And, they are way more exciting than just regular social media posts or blog articles.
Try Limited-Time Custom Poster Printing Booths
Set up a small stall at local fairs or markets in your area. At your booth, people can get quick, fun posters printed on the spot, like a family picture, a funny line, or a cool design. It grabs attention and gets people talking about your work. The benefit? Well, they get a keepsake, while you get exposure and attractive leads.
Flex Art Wall
Make a “Flex Art Wall” in your shop or a nearby spot. Show off all the fun and creative prints that you have worked on till date, not just simple ads but some cool designs, quotes, or memes. Such a display of your work will show that you do more than just regular poster printing. Also, do not forget to leave your business details with it!
Google My Business Posts & Offers
Update your Google Business profile weekly with photos, special discounts, or new designs. Many people search “flex printing near” me.” This simple practice can easily boost your chances of showing up in the search and getting leads.
Start Niche Hashtag Campaigns
Create your own local hashtag and add it to every post, and encourage your customers to use it too. Over time, it becomes your digital signature.
Handpicked Related Content: How to Get Customers for Printing Business
Ready to Kickstart Your Flex Printing Business?
The flex printing business is booming, and if you want to start it, simply follow the steps and tips mentioned above.
PrintXpand has helped thousands of printing businesses succeed. Our flagship product, the Product Designer Tool, enables you to offer product customization in your store. Additionally, print ERP software streamlines all your daily operations.
Execute your flex printing business plan into reality. See how the Web to Print Solutions can bring the sense of uniqueness to your store for 2X sales!
All product and company names are trademarks™, registered® or copyright© trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.
