Kyocera Inkjet Presses Help Salt Lake Company Streamline Direct Mail

Salt Lake Mailing and Printing has built its business around helping customers get direct mail into the hands of the right people — and proving that it works.

The $20+ million Salt Lake City-based company has been serving customers for more than three decades from its 25,000-sq.-ft. production facility, focusing primarily on the local market but with some national clients as well.

“We are a commercial printer, but 80+% of our revenue comes from direct mail specifically,” says Michael Frost, general manager of the 38-employee company.

Salt Lake Mailing and Printing installed two Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000C sheetfed inkjet presses in January 2026. | Credit: Salt Lake Mailing and Printing

Salt Lake Mailing and Printing is not simply printing pieces and handing them off. The company works with customers on everything from straightforward campaigns to sophisticated, highly segmented programs.

“We like to say that we can service mail across the entire spectrum,” Frost says. “Whether it's just an Every Door Direct Mail campaign or you're doing a multivariate, highly segmented project.”

Salt Lake Mailing and Printing has a marketing strategist on staff to help customers refine campaigns, integrate print into broader omnichannel marketing programs, and develop testing strategies.

“We believe heavily in testing,” Frost says. “Let's find out what works … for each particular customer.”

After deployment, the company helps customers understand whether campaigns are producing results.

“We also record responses and we help them confirm that they're actually getting a return on their direct mail spend,” Frost says.

In a world where digital messages are easily ignored, Frost strongly believes in the power of printed marketing pieces.

“There’s value in having something tangible,” he says. The company has observed that direct mail influences all the other channels.

“It's not a coincidence that a few days after your mail drops, your [Google] search volumes go up,” he says.

Moving From Toner to Inkjet

For a company whose revenue is driven so heavily by mail, production efficiency is essential. So is the ability to personalize. That combination is what ultimately pushed Salt Lake Mailing and Printing toward production inkjet.

Previously, the company used a Heidelberg offset press to print shells, which were stored as inventory, then later run through a black-and-white toner digital printer to add variable text. Salt Lake Mailing and Printing wanted a more modern approach that would let the company print full-color, variable direct mail in a single digital workflow.

“We feel that inkjet is the future,” Frost says.

Employee Kelley Evans operates one of Salt Lake Mailing and Printing's two Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000C sheetfed inkjet presses. The presses allow the company to produce personalized direct mail pieces in one pass, eliminating the need to print offset shells and add variable data later. | Credit: Salt Lake Mailing and Printing

After researching its options, the company installed two Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000C sheetfed inkjet presses in January 2026. Now, instead of printing and storing shells, the company can produce direct mail pieces with color and variable information in one pass and send them straight to inserters and then out the door.

Clients no longer have to prepay for large quantities of shells. They can order what they need and make changes more easily from campaign to campaign.

The company’s transition to inkjet was driven in part by Frost’s frustration with the toner model.

“Because of click charges, you get no scale,” he laments. “The millionth piece printed costs the same as the first piece. It’s just hard to really improve your margins when there's just no built-in volume discount.”

Though he and his team looked at many different inkjet presses, they felt the Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000C offered the perfect entry point into inkjet.

“We can test the strategy, get used to it, and then eventually expand when the time is right,” he says.

Installing the Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000C presses was a very smooth process, he says.

“It runs on just the regular 110 outlet. You don’t have to invest anything in your infrastructure in order to get it to work,” he points out.

His operators had no trouble learning to run them either.

“Anybody that knows how to run a copier … could run one of these things,” he contends. “The Kyocera is run off of a Fiery system, and we are already used to using that. So that front end was easy. They're just not as complex as, say, an Indigo, and it's easier to train, easier to run. We love it.”

Lower Costs, New Opportunities

Frost has been impressed with the uptime of the TASKalfa Pro 15000Cs. After some small technical issues in the first weeks, which were easily adjusted by Kyocera technicians, he has not needed any maintenance since.

“It's not been down. We've not had any maintenance issues,” he says. “Here we are five months into it, and it's 100% uptime.”

Since adding the Kyocera presses, the company has started using 8.5x11” sheets instead of cutting down larger sheets. This is saving around $8,000 per month, Frost says.

In addition to printing direct mail pieces on the Kyocera machines, the company uses them to produce a lot of transactional jobs.

“It’s perfect for that kind of work,” Frost says. “The intension is to do all transactional work on the TASKalfas.”

The presses have also helped open new business opportunities for Salt Lake Mailing and Printing.

“It has helped us to be a little bit more competitive on price in some cases,” he says. “We've gotten at least one or two more opportunities since we've installed those boxes.”

The reliability and ease of use of the Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000Cs — combined with the cost savings and productivity gains they delivered — have given Frost and his team confidence that they made the right move.

“Our experience with Kyocera on the install side was great,” he says. “Their techs who helped us install were second to none, and honestly it was nice dealing directly with the manufacturer. I feel like we got a better experience by going direct.”

Based on this, he’s certain Kyocera will be able to quickly handle any future maintenance needs.

“But we don't anticipate any issues,” he says, “because the machine just works.”