National print network set to service Salmat SMEs

Printers around Australia start pumping out letterbox marketing material as Salmat launches its Local Direct Network website.

The site, www.ldn.net.au, designed to offer the SME (small-to-medium enterprise) market access to producing, printing and distributing marketing collateral, went live yesterday after being in beta mode for 60 days. According to David Besson, (pictured), chief executive office of Salmat’s targeted media solutions division, material is currently being printed.

“The volume [so far] is in the hundreds of thousands already as we were trialling it with customers for months before and our sales team were using and promoting the product out in the field last month,” he said.

The LDN’s print network consists of 15 printers across New South Wales, Victoria, Canberra, South Australia and Western Australia. Besson revealed that there are intentions to increase not only the number of printers being used, but also the states and regions with printers in Australia.

“We will eventually increase with the intention of building that print network right across the Australian landscape,” he said. “We define and locate printers that are close to our distribution areas. There’s a team of people put on here to manage this component behind the scenes. We get great penetration in regional and country areas and will uplift the number of printers based on location, which saves freight and transport costs.”

Ability and cost effectiveness are the two criteria that Salmat look for when selecting printers to be part of its network. “That doesn’t mean they have to be the cheapest,” Besson added.

Customer feedback on the quality of the print work has been positive from SMEs using the service. “To go from nothing to all of a sudden ordering hundreds of thousands of documents in a very short time is great,” Besson said. “This portal allows us to determine very quickly if this is a service that the SME market wants. It will be interesting to see the outcome in the next month – we’ve got high expectations.”