SMART MAILERS KNOW THEIR ADDRESS NUMBERS AND HOW TO IMPROVE THEM

The following is a postal perspective by Jody Berenblatt, Senior Vice President, Postal Strategy, Bank of America, who also serves on the PostCom Board of Directors and its Executive Committee. Comments or questions can be addressed to jberenblat@aol.com.  

We all know that postal rates, sooner or later, will have to rise again. As a matter of fact, given the current circumstances, it looks as if the next increase will be coming sooner (in early 2006) than later. Any mailer that knows an increase is on the horizon will begin to look at alternative scenarios by which the impact of the increase could be lessened, e.g., do I mail less, or do I redesign and lighten the mailing, and so on.  

Postal rate increases, of course, are not the only changes that are on the postal horizon. So also are some significant changes by which mailers prepare and the Postal Service processes larger-than-letter-size "flat" mail. For the past several years, the Postal Service has been telling its customers that it may be using new machines and techniques to prepare mail for Flats Sequence Sorting (FSS) or for Delivery Point Packaging (DPP) for automated entry and handling. This machine-based preparation will require mailers to make sure that the delivery point zip codes and barcodes they apply are 100% valid. Indeed, the USPS already has introduced a software system for zip code "delivery point validation" (DPV).  

Most mailers really do believe their mailing lists are as good and as accurate as anyone can make them. What a mailer believes, however, is not the issue. The actual performance of the list when compared to DPV processing is. Experience suggests that when many mailers run their lists for delivery point validation, they're going to be in for a rude awakening.  

When it comes to address accuracy, there are two numbers that are crtical to every mailing. The first is the accuracy of ZIP+4 encoding, and the second is the percentage of addresses that are delivery point validated. These numbers are easy to obtain. The only problem is, most mailers don't bother to obtain them, or, much more likely, couldn't tell you what those percentages are.  As your family internist would tell you, you really should know your low-density and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol counts, but most people don't--until, that is, they get their first heart attack or stroke and then they get to know those numbers quite intimately.  

To ensure the best possible "mailing health," every mailer should know their ZIP+4 coding and DPV percentages. Even more important, they should know the variance between the two. A file with a 95% ZIP+4 coding rate could drop to 88% once DPV is added to the mix. That means that 12% of the entire mailing file may not qualify for automation entry, which means an effective (and substantial) postal rate increase on a signficant portion of the mailing.  

Why spend dollars on postage when you don't have to? There are, after all, tools that exist already to help improve your ZIP+4 coding and delivery point validation. And, with a little time and investment on your part, you could let enhanced mail addressing accuracy add substantially to your company's bottom line.       

The Address Data Interchange Specification, or "ADIS," is one such tool that mailers can use today. The purpose of ADIS is to set forth a standardized format for all the elements that make up an address. The Postal Service's address-related data files are already atomized into a number of addressing elements. ADIS specifies the manner by which addressing elements should be parsed and maintained. For instance, in the address "100 West Main Street," "100" is the house number; "west" is the directional; "main" is the street name, and "street" is the thoroughfare type to which all are applied. When addressing data are maintained in this manner, ensuring and enhancing address data quality becomes much easier. So, for instance, in an ADIS environment, figuring out how many records may require an apartment or suite number in the context of those that possess this secondary data is a relatively easy task.  

ADIS is one of the offspring of a considerable amount of work undertaken at the Universal Postal Union (UPU) through the auspices of the IDEAlliance, a non-profit association that undertakes a variety of data standards development. The UPU's work culminated in what is known as Standard S42. While S42 goes a long way toward specifying essential address elements, ADIS goes beyond and specifies the manner in which addresses and personalized messages should be used on the mail piece itself.  

What you need to remember is that ADIS is a "format." There really is a difference in an address that is listed as "100 West Main Street Apt 3D" and one that is listed as "100 West Main Street Apt D3." Such differnces can affect your ZIP+4 coding and DPV variances.  

The key is to remember that addresses need to be maintained in their most basic elements, AND they need to be maintained in the sequence by which the parsed elements must be compiled. In short, be sure you know your mailing list's ZIP+4 and DPV numbers. Look at your files, and see how your addresses are stored electronically. Map out a plan to integrate an ADIS way of doing things within your database management systems. Doing so will save your company time and a considerable amount of money.  

To learn more about ADIS and the benefits you can derive, get on the internet and go to http://www.IDEAlliance.org/adis. You'll be glad you did.