The publicly listed company began a pilot program to trial the new service in Victoria in May.

Chief executive Grant Harrod said yesterday the ‘Local Direct Network’ (LDN) service is now ready for full-scale roll-out.

Salmat will launch an online portal in the next six to eight weeks, through which SME clients will be able to access templates to design their own marketing campaigns.

“We will print it for them. They will nominate the location they would like the distribution to occur, the time they would like it to occur, and we will handle the distribution,” said Harrod.

The foundation of the LDN is Salmat’s distribution network of 18,000 contracted workers, who currently deliver catalogues to most of the country.

“Salmat is consistently getting 96-97% coverage of Australian households. On top of that we are getting 99% fulfilment,” said Harrod.

He said that the SME strategy, combined with the print management services it already offers the corporate sector, had driven it to expand its panel of print suppliers from around 100 to 200.

Harrod added: “We are always keen to take on more as well. As we take this campaign out into the regional locations, one of the opportunities will be to engage regional printers. We want to get the shortest distance between the printer and our distribution centre.”

“If it is an Adelaide client, it will be an Adelaide printer. If it is a Melbourne client, it will be a Melbourne printer.”

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