Lists

We can say it in one word: money. Mailpieces that never reach their intended recipient return zero on your investment of printing and postage costs.

People Move — a Lot
The statistics tell the story:

•    36.8 million address changes were processed by the USPS in 2018 (Source: USPS)
•    Approximately 1 in 6 families moves each year (Source: USPS)
•    4,071 addresses are added to the USPS delivery network every day (Source: USPS)
•    Americans move an average of 11.7 times in their lifetime (Source: Steinway Movers)

How many of these people are your customers or prospects? Even if it’s only 5% of your list, that could make a significant dent in your response and conversion rates.

USPS Address Accuracy Requirements
In the olden days, the postal carrier would make an effort to see that mail got forwarded to the recipient’s new address. Now that everything is automated, it’s up to the mailer to make that address as perfect as possible.

To qualify for Marketing Mail and First-Class Mail postage rages, you must verify the following address elements by the deadlines listed:

Checking List Accuracy
The USPS offers suggestions on its Checking the Accuracy of Your Address List website page. These include CASS-certified software, NCOALink® and the USPS’s own address list correction service (fee required).

The good news? When you mail with Click2Mail, CASS and NCOA are automatically part of the ordering process. Not extra steps or fees.

Note: If you are using mailing lists from multiple sources, you’ll also want to perform a merge/purge in order to remove duplicate names/addresses.

Funny Story
You want more evidence that verifying addresses is important? Look what happened to global shipping company UPS. In May of 2018, mail addressed to their corporate headquarters — including senior executives’ credit cards and sensitive company information — was rerouted to the apartment of a man who had simply filled out a change of address form at the Post Office. He had not even been asked for proof of identity!

Help Is Just a Click or Call Away
If you need more info on how often you should update your mailing list and the best methods for doing so, please get in touch with our Click2Mail mailing experts. Also, be sure to check out our Mailing List Center for some reliable lists and data analysis.