Reduce your postage costs with accurate data

Last week I talked about scrubbing customer files and why you need clean data. Not to harp on it, but each week I receive mailers addressed to previous homeowners, or sometimes duplicate mailings addressed to “Mr. Hero” and “My Hero.” I can’t help but think of all the dollars that are wasted on these mailings. Without ongoing data scrubbing, 10 to 15 percent of your customer lists can become inaccurate in just a year. That’s a lot of wasted mail and postage costs!

So what do you do? Quality data involves three steps. MySalesHero.com, which is powered by Acxiom, can help you put these steps into practice — and gain a big advantage over your competitors.

Step 1: Accurate Addresses. CASS certification ensures your addresses are deliverable according to USPS standards, appends Zip+4 and DPV data, and qualifies your mailing for the deepest automation discounts. It ensures you have a deliverable address, but it may not necessarily mean you have the right one.

Step 2: Best Address. Acxiom BestAddress fills in and updates address data by adding missing apartment numbers and correcting street number transpositions. Run BestAddress before NCOALink and you’ll get increased matches for higher deliverability.

Step 3: Current Address. NCOALink links a name with an address record and provides change-of-address updates on all businesses and consumers that have filed a change in the previous 48 months.

Combining these three steps gives you much more comprehensive address correction and change of address data, plus you can go back 48 months into Acxiom’s historical external data if you choose to partner with MySalesHero.com. If you’re relying on a print shop or other list provider, they may be providing only the minimum required list processing. It’s important to check as you may be missing an opportunity to significantly increase the deliverability of your mailings and reduce postage costs at the same time.

Try MySalesHero.com out today and get a special #superhero discount of 30% on your first order by using the promotion code #newcustomers.

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