Handling Lousy Mailing Lists

What do you do when a print customer hands you a mailing list that hasn’t been used in years? You could assure the customer you’ll process the list through the NCOA to identify bad or changed addresses. That solves the problem. Right?

When you get 20% or more of the mailed pieces returned as undeliverable, there’s bound to be some blowback. At best, the customer is going to wonder what went wrong…more likely, what you did wrong. Now what? You can rip the list to shreds while cursing at the customer for having a terrible list. Explain how you are filing a formal complaint with the USPS about shoddy service. Suddenly pretend you don’t speak English. In tough situations, claim you need emergency treatment after being attacked by a spider high on toner. Or, be better prepared when you are handed a potentially lousy mailing list.

Let’s start with what to do when you get the suspicious list and discuss your options for maximizing the deliverability rate (or at least avoid the blame for lots of returned pieces).

Start by asking a few pertinent questions:

• Where did the list come from?
• When was it used last?
• Was/is it updated regularly?
• What’s the purpose of the mailing? (e.g. carpet bombing or precision strikes)

If the answers are along the lines of “rented it”, “it’s old”, “years ago”, “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know”, there are your red flags.

Fixing Mailing List Delivery Problems

The customer probably expects (or hopes) that you wave a magic wand to turn his lousy mailing list into gold. If you expect that the NCOA (National Change of Address) processing will keep the undeliverable rate low for an old, dubious list - think again!

Consider these points about mailing lists, the NCOA process and deliverability:

• Estimates are that more than 40 million (about 15%) American addresses change each year, but some 15 to 20% of people move without filling out a change of address notice. So, that two-year old mailing list could have 30% of the addresses changed, but only 24% of those changes may be known by the USPS.

• The NCOA is not an address validator. Simply because the NCOA process does not “flag” a record does not mean the piece will be deliverable. The NCOA will only flag those records where a valid change of address notice is on file or those identified as a “nixie” (undeliverable-as-addressed for whatever reason) by the USPS.

• For the consumers’ privacy protection, the NCOA process requires an exact match of name and address in the mailing list (with some nicknames and misspellings excepted). If a mailing list record does not match the name and address on file in the NCOA database, no new address information is provided nor will the address be flagged as being invalid. Because this is such a common misunderstanding, we’ll say it a second time: 

If a name and address in your mailing list do not exactly match the name and address in the NCOA database, it is very unlikely you will receive any sort of information to indicate there is anything wrong with the address. If you do get some information, it will be because: 1) someone has a correct and current change of address notice on file, or 2) the USPS has identified an issue delivering mail to that address.

• The older the list, the more mismatched names and addresses that will likely pass through the NCOA “unflagged” and the more returned pieces.

• The age and maintenance of a mailing list affects deliverability but other factors such as address type (residential, business, etc.), demographics (young, old, students, families, singles, etc.) and the time of year (holidays, vacations, snowbirds, etc.) can also have an affect.

• Undeliverable First Class mail is returned to the sender but undeliverable Standard mail goes in the trash.

• There are non-USPS services that offer to validate addresses. This done by comparing a mailing list to privately owned, frequently used, mailing lists (credit bureaus, insurance companies, magazines, etc.). However, the cost of these services may not be justifiable.

See how counting on the NCOA process can lead you into a deep pile of muck when your customer’s list is lousy?

We’ll help you out of the muck in the next blog.