NCOA - National Change of Address + ACS - Address Change Service
Ensure Mailing List Delivery
Where are my customers?
The labels are printed and at the letter shop, the mailing is going out on time, and hey, you're even going to track the results on Excel. You're on top of it - or are you? You've spent lots of time and preparation to get this mailing out your door but will it all arrive? The USPS says that as much as 35% of all the third class mail sent never arrives. Most of this is due to inaccurate addressing or shoddy data entry. The rest is not keeping up with the constantly shifting pattern of moves and address changes.
Statistics indicate that about 10% to 15% of the national population change location every year. If you factor in anomalies such as the 1993 mid-western floods or Hurricane Katrina, local area changes can be significantly greater. Businesses are often volatile within a changing financial environment, and regional economies can be especially troublesome. For example, more and more businesses are escaping California's crippled and badly mismanaged economy, going to more inviting areas like Utah, Texas or Nevada. The fact that these states welcome such refugee companies' attendant revenues with open arms (offering several financial and tax incentives as well) has had a tremendous impact on the accuracy of California businesses mailing lists for the last two or three years. Lists that were typically 93% deliverable, in many cases, dropped to an ineffective 75% to 80% reliability factor. It's equally difficult to keep up with new movers into financially attractive areas, due to the uncharacteristically increased incoming rates of flow. Trying to track these migrations can be an expensive "Nightmare on Mail Street." Therefore, for serious mailers, keeping their list clean, accurate and current is a major concern.
Typically, mailing list management is the choreography of patterns. If you've got that down, the technical aspects can be easily assimilated in a fairly short time. If this idea isn't the basis for every decision you make about your mailing list, you will continually be having surprises; and surprises = problems.
One of the most important operations in list maintenance is keeping addressing
accurate on the one hand, while correctly matched with the current recipient
on the other. These are two distinctly separate processes. Usually done in
two stages, it makes sense to begin by insuring that the addresses themselves
are clean (correct; standardized and therefore, deliverable).
Keeping Your Mailing List Cleaned
Cleaning and verifying deliverability simply requires strategy and good software. The first order of business is to regularly encode your list to CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) standards. There are many fine CASS certified software products available which will do this at a reasonable cost. You will need a CD ROM since the USPS database against which your list will be matched is too large to make any other PC magnetic media practical, available or affordable.
For those of you who are still new to this, here is what this software does for you: It verifies and, when possible, corrects the 5-digit ZIP code in each record. It will standardize the address by spelling the street name correctly, properly abbreviating directionals (North West to NW), street designators (Avenue to Ave or Boulevard to Blvd) while removing any illegal punctuation (periods, commas, etc.). Finally, it will add the 4-digit ZIP+4 extension onto the basic 5-digit ZIP code, optionally add the delivery point Barcode number (2 digits - 3 digits with the checksum number) and implant the correct carrier route and its associated sequence information into each record. If an address is correct, the necessary coding information is simply added or updated. If the address is incorrectly written, but recognizable, it will be corrected as well. If the software cannot reach a definite conclusion, it will bypass that record, typically leaving an optional error code indicating what the problem is. In essence, those records that can be ZIP+4 encoded are deliverable - those that cannot, may not be. (Don't discard those yet as they still may be rescued.)
If your list is very small, or you only mail occasionally, you may wish to take advantage of the USPS's offer to code your list at no charge. Note that you will have to output your file to a USPS-defined ASCII fixed field file format (the Postal Service will provide you with the required specifications). While individual offices are often nice enough to update your list more than once, the USPS really only offers to do this one time. Don't expect them to keep your list updated on a continual basis; it's your list, it’s your responsibility.
There are also some programs which will allow you to call in to your local Post Office and code your list over a modem but, because it's a very slow process, this is really only practical for smaller lists. There are several Web services that will either code you list and send it back, as well as some that will let you code your list directly online.
If you take your list seriously, it's probably better to bite the bullet and get the right software or utilize a qualified service bureau.
How clean is clean? If your list doesn't achieve at least a 90-93% coding rate, then it needs work. Here's a guideline:
98%-100% Excellent
94-97% Very Good
90-93% Good
80-89% Needs Work
70-79% Needs Work!
60-69% Danger! Danger!
0-59% Telemarket Instead
How often is regularly? The USPS still hasn't come up with a definitive
periodicity for updating ZIP+4's, though they strongly suggest at least
once a year. If you are able to take advantage of carrier route rates,
the answer is clearer - your list must be updated (using the current
edition of the USPS National Database) every two months, since carrier
routes change so often. My suggestion (and personal practice) is to
update a list every two months, or anytime a significant change to
the list occurs. You should re-code, for instance, after new records
have been added or when a lot of address changes have been made. It's
simple and keeps your database trim. Incidentally, always code before
initiating a search for duplicate records; the address standardization
alone will help you find a lot more.
More about NCOA and ACS Services on page 2
Get more infomation about NCOA and ACS Services on page2