Melissa Data Feature Articles
DATA QUALITY: Four rules to help you make the most of your data.
By Teri Dimon, marketing specialist, Melissa Data Corp.
With more businesses competing for today’s savvy and discriminating consumers, everyone wants to know the secrets of success in a highly competitive and often cluttered marketplace. In other words, how do you save money, boost response rates, and increase your bottom line?
The answer may be even closer to home than you think. Start with the data in your customer or prospect databases; it can mean the difference between success and failure for your next direct marketing campaign.
Whether you use your database for an occasional mailing or telemarketing campaign, or depend on it daily for the very survival of your business, the content and quality of your data inevitably equals the lifetime value of your database. So, how can you make sure your database is in tip-top shape?
Rule #1: Clean it up or clear it out!
What good is an address if you can’t deliver to it? The most obvious indicator of bad address data is returned mail. Not only are you wasting money on postage and printing, but you’re missing an opportunity to communicate with your customer or prospect – and you’re losing money.
Cleaning up addresses is easy these days. Just be sure to take advantage of the many reliable sources for verifying and correcting address data, including:
1. CASS CertifiedTM processing
for ZIP + 4® code
accuracy
2. DPVTM verification of accuracy
of deliverable addresses
3. DSF2TM identification of
deliverable addresses and specific address attributes
4. LACSLinkTM conversion of rural
routes to 9 1 1 city-street addresses
The combination of these USPS®
products and services not only verifies each address down to the apartment or suite number, but can also tell you if a rural route (RR) address has converted to a city-street address. After one year, a converted LACSLink
address becomes undeliverable using the RR address, even though the resident has not physically moved.
Rule #2: Eliminate duplicate records.
Now that your addresses are accurate and standardized, searching for duplicate records is a breeze. You can easily find multiple records containing duplicate information. On average, a list will have 10 percent in duplicates. Keep the ones you want – and for budget’s sake, get rid of the rest!
Rule #3: Verified addresses do not guarantee accurate delivery.
Still getting mail returned even though the address is correct? Maybe your intended recipient just doesn’t live at that address anymore. Up to 20 percent of your database may need new addresses for recipients, which represents yet another lost opportunity to communicate with a valued customer or prospect.
Submit your list to a reliable vendor for NCOALinkTM
Move Update service, and any other change-of-address services they may offer. NCOALink matches your addresses to records on file with the USPS dating back four years. Extended,
or multisource services catch even more of your movers by tapping into a variety of sources dating back five years or more.
Rule #4: Put a little ZIPTM into your database.
They may look like just nine simple numbers, but to a direct marketing specialist, the ZIP + 4 code on an address is a golden opportunity for effective, responsive target marketing. Using the ZIP + 4 code, you can access the following information:
1. Latitude/longitude
2. Census data
3. Carrier route codes
4. City and county statistics
5. Area code & time zone – and more.
With this information, you can effectively identify the demographics and geographics of your consumers, target your best market, reduce postage, eliminate waste, and of course, increase delivery and response rates.
And, after all, when it comes to your contact data, isn’t that what it’s all about?
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