Make Sure Your Mailing List is Up To Date

Did you know that:

1. 17% of Americans change addresses annually?
2. 42 million people move each year
3. One out of every six families move

Not enough of our direct mail customers pay attention to keeping a very updated list of customers to mail to. Can you imagine how much waste in money and time it causes from undeliverable addresses? It can easily cost into the thousands. That can definitely make a big cut in the profitibility of your business!

Here are some ways you can reduce your costs when doing your next mailing while keeping your list current and updated.

To make sure that you are getting a list with accurate addresses, ask about the National Deliverability Index (NDI) of the list. The NDI rates the percentage of addresses in a list that are deliverable. Use the NDI to target the address elements you need to get the delivery —- and postage price —- you want. For example, if you are targeting a specific 5-digit ZIP Code, look for an NDI of 100% for address element.

The United States Post Office provides many ways where you can validate the accuracy of postal addresses.

You can also use www.USPS.com to check zip codes in your list.

You can submit your list directly to the USPS on a printout so they can mark any changes of addresses. There will be a small fee for this service.

You can also run your list through a NCOA approved vendor that can check over your list with special software and make on the spot corrections.

The most important thing is that you should make a conscious effort to ensure all addresses are good. As stated earlier there is so many people and businesses either moving or changing contact information on a daily basis that it is sometime to pay attention to early on in order to save waste and wasted money in the process!