More Than a Printer: More Than Ink Printing, Jacksonville, FL

Iconic printer Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”

Continual business growth is something that’s always expected but never really explained. How do you grow? When is the right time to take those bold next steps? These are questions that More Than Ink Printing in Jacksonville, Florida, has contemplated and recently answered.

Introducing More Than Ink Printing

In 2005, More Than Ink Printing began as a small newspaper print company.

As the years went by, the company grew steadily and became a well-known local print shop. Today, the company employs roughly thirty people and is run by President and Co-Owner John Christiansen and Vice President and Co-Owner Aaron Canaday. Together, they’ve put their long history in the print industry to work and expanded the business.

In 2017, the company’s focus shifted towards newer technology and becoming the leading printer in the area.

“We’ve been growing steadily ever since, adding new people nonstop and doing all sorts of new things along the way,” explains Aaron Canaday. “One of those things has been building a larger facility, which is one more step in getting us to that next level we’re after.”

A Winning Formula for Continued Print Business Growth

How does More Than Ink continue to see steady growth? Their winning formula includes a honed-in focus on these three things.

1. Never stop evaluating.

As the company has grown, More Than Ink has seen a need for continual evaluation of its operations, never settling on a this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it mindset.

“It’s not as complicated as it sounds,” explains Aaron. “We simply started to evaluate what items we do best and what we could have more control over. For example, keeping all our printing and signage in-house instead of outsourcing.”

More Than Ink Printing Company also does wholesale printing for many local print shops that resell their work. This has been a niche for them since the beginning.

“There’s less profit on the wholesale side, but it provides constant business. Plus, we generate a lot of great relationships with these print shops,” says Aaron.

Their most considerable growth effort, though, came when they evaluated the needs of their print buyers and how to adjust to meet those needs. More Than Ink recently upgraded its website, online ordering capabilities, SEO and marketing strategy, and MIS solution. It’s a big step for them, but they confidently carry the vision forward.

“For most of our history, our website has just been, ‘Here’s some information about us. You can send us a file or a quote,’” explains Aaron. “But, we’ve invested in updating it to be a useful tool that people can use regularly and that we can advertise more through email marketing and so forth.”

2. Never stop marketing.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a struggle for most of the world and presented new obstacles for More Than Ink Printing Company.  They found their way through it by maintaining their creativity and refocusing their marketing.

“A lot of the industries that we do continuous business for, like churches, for example, weren’t doing their newsletters anymore, so many places were not ordering the things that they would regularly order,” says Aaron. “But, other areas excelled in making up for them. Mailing was big, so we started promoting that, saying, ‘If you can’t hand your newsletter out, then mail it to them.’ On the large format side, there became a whole new category of Covid signage. We did a lot of floor graphics, exterior signage, and parking signs, which opened up this giant window of things we weren’t previously offering.

“We had to get creative, but we kept going and growing.”
– Aaron Canaday, Vice President/Co-Owner

3. Never stop serving.

More Than Ink Printing prides itself on customer service and attention to detail.

“I, we all have a strong passion for serving our customers well,” says Aaron. “When we get to hear positive feedback from customers, it just spurs us on to want to do even more. Even in challenging situations, we strive to go above and beyond to resolve the issue.”

Maintaining that passion for serving customers well can be challenging when you’re busy growing, but the team at More Than Ink has set the goal within their sites.

“Scaling up without sacrificing the quality of our services is our number one priority,” says Aaron.

Parting Words of Wisdom  

In closing, Aaron offers one additional nugget of wisdom worth capturing.

“Take care of your employees. Evaluating and upgrading your systems and technology allows you to reduce the number of steps people are doing, freeing up their time and allowing you to grow more by redirecting attention into different areas.”

More Than Ink Printing is a success story of a local print shop growing into a leading printer in their area. Watching them push forward with newer technology and focus on what they do best is, and should be, an inspiration to all of us.

This article originally appeared in the May 2023 issue of NPSOA magazine. For more information on how you can become an NPSOA member and enjoy the many benefits offered there, contact Member Services at membership@npsoa.org or head to their website at NPSOA.org.