Dallas Printer Faced with Paper Supply Shortages Provides Solutions to Direct Mail Marketers with SCREEN’s Truepress Jet520 Series

SCREEN Americas announces the installation of its fourth continuous-feed inkjet press from the Truepress Jet520 series to Summit Direct Mail, Inc. of Dallas, Texas. The direct mail printer now has two presses from the Truepress Jet520ZZ series, one Truepress Jet520HD+ and one Truepress Jet520HD AD. The four presses reside in one of the company’s three facilities in the Dallas area and account for 80 percent of its total production.

Summit Direct Mail chose to designate its Truepress Jet520ZZ series to direct mail campaigns involving 8 ½" x 11" letters printed on 60-pound uncoated stock and the Truepress Jet520HD series for postcards and self-mailers printed on coated stock. Because neither series requires preprinted shells, Summit Direct Mail’s direct mail marketing customers can make last minute changes to their campaigns based on the stock that is available.

Such flexibility retains business for Summit Direct Mail whose customers are often disappointed when they discover that the paper that they planned on using is not available in the quantity that they need due to a tightened global supply chain. “My customers are having to make decisions based on what’s available to them paper-wise,” said Mike Robinson, director of new technology and business development at Summit Direct Mail. “Because SCREEN’s technology allows me to print on a wide variety of substrates, I can offer them alternative solutions that were previously off the table for their direct mail campaigns.”

Summit Direct Mail has experienced an increase in the demand for direct mail since more people have migrated to a work-from-home model. Robinson attributes this to individuals having more time to review what’s in their mailboxes. “When folks had long commutes to and from an office, items in a mailbox had a greater tendency to pile up,” said Robinson. “This led to marketing materials either not being read in a timely fashion or getting tossed right away.” With SCREEN’s technology, Summit Direct Mail has been able to capitalize on this recent shift in people’s daily habits where they are more likely to spend time reviewing their mail on a daily basis over their lunch hours as opposed to setting it aside and going through it one day a week.

The company has also addressed the industry’s labor shortages with the Truepress Jet520 series. With 150 employees across two shifts, Summit Direct Mail only needs one employee per shift to operate a single SCREEN press. The company produces 1.5 to 2 million pieces of mail per day and is fully prepared to produce 5 million pieces per day when paper supplies are expected to return to previous levels.

Founded in 2003, Summit Direct Mail serves the financial, nonprofit, retail and healthcare industries along with government agencies.