Melissa Data Feature Articles
LIST HYGIENE: The ‘address police’ are on the prowl.
By Ray Melissa, president, Melissa Data.
Marketing managers at businesses of all sizes need to realize they now
shoulder more responsibility when it comes to the quality of their
postal data. That’s because the U.S. Postal Service®
(USPS®) has stepped up
its enforcement of the move-update rule that requires mailers to clean
up their address files in order to earn mailing discounts.
To qualify for First-Class presort discounts, mailers must update the
movers in their lists at least every six months. If mailers are not
updating their address records, yet still claiming the discounts on the
front end, they can expect a visit from the USPS, which may result in
steep fines for recovery of back postage.
Postal audits began in the Southeast last year and are being extended
nationwide in 2003. Already, USPS revenue assurance officials have been
in contact with dozens of mailers from Florida to California. What’s
more, the move-update requirements will likely be expanded in 2003 to
include Periodicals and Standard MailTM
classes.
With these audits underway, now is the time to begin a regular data
hygiene program using the Change of Address (NCOALinkTM)
service, one of the move-update services that meets the requirements for
First-Class MailTM presort
discounts.
According to the USPS, more than 40 million individuals, families, and
businesses move each year. That means up to 20 percent of the people or
companies in a database could have a new address – a fact that presents
some pretty big hurdles to maintaining quality mailing lists, low
postage, and low production costs.
NCOALink matches a company’s
mailing list against a database of address changes submitted to the
USPS. The file contains 152 million records and 48 months of address
changes. Proprietary extended services catch even more movers by tapping
into a variety of sources dating back five years or more. Since 1986,
NCOALink has saved mailers
billions of dollars that otherwise would have been wasted in paper,
postage, and labor costs.
To comply with the USPS’s move update rules, mailers are expected to keep
proof of NCOALink (or another
approved service being used), in addition to demonstrating that bad
addresses in the database have actually been repaired. In this way,
businesses can reduce undeliverable mail, which costs the USPS
approximately $1.5 billion a year to handle.
As an example of the volume of bad records that can be found in a
database, a state Republican party last April submitted its voter rolls
to be matched against NCOALink.
Of the 3.9 million voter records processed, about 528,000 records were
matched to recent movers in the USPS file.
MedicAlert, a nonprofit with 2.4 million members in the United States, is
another organization that has seen the benefits of ongoing data hygiene.
From its headquarters in Turlock, CA, MedicAlert coordinates large
direct-mail campaigns to its members. The mailings are sent two to three
times a year to prompt members to update their personal medical and
contact information and return the data to MedicAlert. Each mailing
numbers more than one million pieces.
“To improve mail deliverability, we use NCOALink
matching prior to each direct-mail campaign to our members,” said Ramesh
Srinivasan, director of marketing for MedicAlert. The group also passes
its records through mCOA (multi-source change-of-address) for matching
against data sources other than the U.S. Postal Service.
Taking the address hygiene process a few steps beyond NCOALink,
marketers are now being encouraged to tap into other services that can
eliminate duplicate records, update addresses with rural route
conversions, and determine the deliverability of addresses by noting if
they are seasonal or vacant, or business or consumer.
Regular data cleansing has become a critical bottom-line issue. Not only
does it enable you to qualify for postage discounts, but it is
absolutely essential to preserving one of your company’s most valuable
assets – your customer base.
Ray Melissa is president of Melissa Data, a provider of data quality
software and services.
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