One of the largest and most unnecessary expenses incurred by direct mail firms and mailing houses each year stems from outdated and inaccurate direct mail mailing lists. In fact, millions of dollars are lost annually due to insufficient processes in place to make address corrections, deletions, additions, eliminate duplicates and/or modify data on targeted direct mail mailing lists on an ongoing basis.
Direct mail companies lacking the time, resources and technology to keep their direct mail mailing lists accurate and up-to-date might consider selecting a lettershop with data processing services that include data entry and mailing list management. In addition to keeping existing databases current, these lettershops utilize merge/purge services that can eliminate redundancies, including duplicate names and addresses, and merge two or more targeted mailing lists into a single, unified resource.
It is also important to make sure the lettershop or mailing house of choice also offers National Change of Address (NCOA) processing as part of their suite of mailing list services. By updating and correcting data files, NCOA processing reduces the need for return mail or mail forwarding.
If you utilize data processing services to reduce direct mail costs related to your direct mail database, we invite you to share your comments and results.