About 40 million Americans move to a new residence or commercial property each year. With so many people moving all the time, it can be tough to keep up. Likewise, while some are quick to put in a change of address with the USPS, many of them don’t. Also, businesses can take years to get everything updated, which means that the likelihood they’ve moved again is high.
Therefore, mailings that you send could be going to outdated addresses. You’re wasting money, losing sales, and opportunities. Likewise, almost eight percent of all standard mail isn’t deliverable because the address is incorrect.
What To Do
NCOA Link service options can help you be more efficient, keep customers, and boost sales. The National Change of Address system keeps addresses updated that have been filed with the USPS. If you have this software, you’ll be able to access it each time you open your database to check for any changes.
How It All Works
Primarily, the NCOA Link Service processes all mailing lists through their system to standardize them and conform them to USPS requirements, including having the ZIP+4 codes. Once the address has been standardized, the system attempts to match the address against a master NCOA file that contains almost 115 million records. If anything is different, they will be replaced with more current information.
Since it started in 1986, this service has helped mailers everywhere save millions of dollars that could have been wasted on materials and postage.
Benefits
Primarily, the advantage of using this service is that you will have lower postage rates. You will also spend less on preparing the mail and printing the materials because you will only print enough to send to accurate and up-to-date addresses.
You may also reduce the time it takes for mail to be delivered to the recipient, as well as reduce undeliverable mail because addresses will be verified and validated.
