SCREEN Truepress Jet520ZZ Makes Summit Direct Mail’s Targeted Communications More Powerful for Customers

April 22, 2015

In the highly competitive world of direct mail marketing, a comprehensive approach to producing customized communications programs creates a strong strategic advantage for companies. Print service providers equipped with a wide range of sophisticated machines play a big role in this regard. Last December, Summit Direct Mail, Inc. added a SCREEN Truepress Jet520ZZ inkjet web press to its fleet. The high-speed alternative to traditional offset printing and offline personalization gives variable data printing more verve in speaking directly to the intended audiences.

“The Truepress Jet520ZZ supports true one-to-one marketing,” said John Barber, founder and president of Dallas, Texas-based Summit Direct Mail. “It prints and personalizes documents at 722 feet a minute in a continuous printing environment.”

With the full-color variable data press, messages and images are tailored to suit specialized markets and individual recipients in any color the customer wants.

“Real-time personalization removes the secondary process of offline imaging and eliminates the need for freestanding inventory of preprinted shells,” Barber pointed out. “It also allows our clients with varying state disclosures, logos and creative to run all projects simultaneously, thereby reducing postal expenditures.”

Since its founding in 2003, Summit Direct Mail has become one of the Southwest’s largest marketing production facilities. It has achieved this distinction by offering its clients turnkey solutions in the form of attractively priced printing, mailing, lettershop, creative services, analytics, data processing and fulfillment services. Known for flexible service, leading-edge applications and an ability to reduce costs dramatically, Summit Direct Mail caters to clients in the nonprofit, financial, insurance, retail and educational sectors.

At 75,000 square feet, Summit Direct Mail’s manufacturing facility houses cut-sheet and continuous forms imaging, variable digital printing, high-speed inserting, folding, tabbing and stamping equipment. Onsite United States Postal Service representation enables Summit to efficiently enter more than one million pieces of direct mail a day into the mail stream.

Texas Offset Printing, a 20-employee sister company, operates just four miles away in a 35,000-square-foot facility. Texas Offset Printing houses two web presses with eight-color and 12-color capability, inkjet web printing and bindery services. The combined operations bill approximately $28 million annually.

Barber stated that Summit Direct Mail is “a debt-free company that positions itself as the low-cost producer of quality direct mail with the highest degree of marketing intelligence.”

The company has the capacity to accommodate everything from a 50-piece order to a five-million-piece order. To streamline print production and minimize turnaround times, Summit Direct Mail started its exhaustive search for an inkjet web press more than four years ago. After testing several models from different manufacturers using identical files, it chose the Truepress Jet520ZZ in a dual-engine duplex-printing configuration.

“We visited numerous manufacturing facilities from Germany to Oregon, Florida, New York and California,” Barber recalled. “This press delivered the best combination of speed, efficiency and quality compared to the competition. We also were impressed with the ease and low cost of operation and the interface with variable data printing software.”

Summit Direct Mail also acquired the dynamic perforation unit, with unlimited capabilities for movement, to complement the Truepress Jet520ZZ.

“Perforations can be placed anywhere on the page at full production speed,” Barber said.

Barber further noted that “it allows us to create customized coupons and other unique promotions corresponding to the personal data.” Additionally, “the Truepress’ reliability, built-in redundancy and remote servicing capabilities were important considerations for us.”

Barber expects the SCREEN press to be producing 200,000 to 500,000 pieces daily within the next three months.

“As a debt-free company, we evaluate every large expenditure and return on investment very closely,” the executive said. “We predict that our ROI will be in range of 36 to 48 months. That is pretty good for an investment of this size.”

“Having SCREEN’s top-of-the-line inkjet web press will keep us as a low-cost producer of direct mail campaigns designed to increase our clients’ response rates,” he said.