Anchor Computer

Offset Postage Increase with Address Hygiene

It’s official – the USPS® postage increase has officially gone into effect on January 22, 2012. This is the second postage increase approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission in less than a year. Most direct mailers will see an average increase of about 2.1% or between $0.004 and $0.001 per mail piece.

Despite the increased cost of mailing, marketers see value in keeping direct mail as part of their 2012 marketing program. In fact, a study performed in 2011 reported that 50% of consumers still prefer receiving direct mail to any other channel. Finding a solution to decrease mailing costs versus reallocating marketing budgets has been a challenge.

Request a FREE DATABASE EVALUATION REPORT to see how Anchor’s SuperCleansing Platinum Bundle can help offset the postage increase and SAVE YOUR DIRECT MAIL BUDGET.

Optimize the delivery of your mailing list using a combination of Anchor’s postal processing services, all bundled together into one “budget saving” solution.  

Anchor’s SuperCleansing Platinum Bundle includes:

NCOALink^® – Process your mailing lists against the 48-month NCOA^Link® dataset of approximately 160 million change-of-address records filed with the USPS^®. Update mailing lists including individuals, families and businesses that have moved.

DPV^® (Delivery Point Validation, confirms an address exists and is a USPS^® delivery point) – DPV^® allows you to eliminate costs by not mailing to non-existent addresses.

LACS^Link®  (Locatable Address Conversion System, 911 Address Conversion Tool) - Converts rural style addresses to city style addresses, improving deliverability.

CASS^TM (Coding Accuracy Support System) – Improves the Address Standardization, ZIP^® Correction, ZIP+4^® Appending, Carrier-Route Coding, Delivery Point Coding, Error Message Code, CASS^TM Report and NDI Report.

DSF^2®  (Identifies Deliverable Addresses and Specific Address Attributes) – Allows you to identify business versus residential delivery points, as well as, vacant and seasonal addresses.

AAE (Anchor Address Enhancements) – Improve addresses that cannot be ZIP + 4^® coded, resulting in improved deliverability. By using an individual name and special matching logic on the address to locate a similar address in large reference file databases, we can determine which address elements need to be changed to make the record ZIP+4^® codable. Verify an actual address exists down to an apartment or suite number. AAE also adds missing secondary address information.

Deceased/Prison Suppress  – Eliminate deceased individuals and individuals with prison addresses from mailings, prior to a promotion.

Merge Purge – Identify duplicate records in your database, based upon your marketing criteria.  Our program goes beyond name and address comparison and incorporates additional data matching elements for increased accuracy, across several different files. Any data on your file such as: Social Security Number, Gender or Telephone Number may be used for your duplicate identification process. Matches can be based on unique individual or household levels.

 Pricing of these products and services is neither established, controlled, nor approved by the United States Postal Service®.  The following trademarks are owned by the United States Postal Service®:  USPS, United States Postal Service, ZIP, ZIP Code, ZIP + 4, LACS^Link, NCOA^Link, DPV, DSF² and CASS.

According to the Postal Service® 23.6% of all mail contains addressing errors. Typically 5% of mail is undeliverable due to missing or incomplete address elements that CASS™ address standardization software may not be able to ZIP + 4® code.

Anchor’s Address Enhancement (AAE) proprietary address correction methodology compares the first name, last name, incomplete address and ZIP Code™ to our 2 Billion Megabase Name/Address File which attempts through fuzzy logic, to correct the address provided. For example if the correct address is 61 Upper Main St and your records show this address as 61 UMS,  CASS™ address standardization software may not be able to ZIP + 4® code the record.

Primary Address Corrections: Includes correcting incomplete addresses, incorrect street names or house numbers, directionals and street name changes.

Secondary Address Corrections: Corrects apartment/suite numbers in multi-unit dwellings. AAE processing typically a third of the records missing apartment/suite numbers.

Using AAE we were able to increase the number of records we ZIP + 4® coded for a client by an additional 1.4% resulting in improved mail deliverability. Based on a 1,000,000 piece mailing at $0.50 per piece mailed 4 times a year, that’s $28,000 in savings the first year!  At a cost of $0.15¢ each correction that’s better than a 3 to 1 payoff on just the first mailing alone!

In addition to improving mail deliverability, correctly coded ZIP + 4® addresses are needed in order to match to the NCOALink® change-of-address file which also uses strict criteria for a match. AAE improves NCOALink® match rates, reduces undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail and optimizes postal discounts.

Ask about our additional Address Hygiene services designed to maximize your Address Correction ROI (return-on-investment).

Read more about Anchor’s Address Enhancement (AAE) services.