Direct mail data accuracy is essential to the success of your marketing and fundraising programs. A meticulous, customized data hygiene and processing program can provide the clean and accurate data you need to improve mail deliverability, get it delivered faster while reducing your postage and printing costs and improving campaign performance.
Maintaining excellent data hygiene is an ongoing process that requires constant vigilance. The issues were explored during the session “Data Hygiene and Data Processing: The Basics” during the Bridge To Integrated Marketing And Fundraising Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. Presenters were Marvin Dawson and Karin Haag of MMI Direct in Columbia, Maryland.
Tailor your data hygiene processes to your unique data set, strategy, and goals. Use this checklist to guide your acquisition data processing plan:
- CASS: Coding Accuracy Support System certification improves data accuracy. Mailings must be produced from address lists properly matched and coded with CASS-certified address matching methods.
- NCOA: National Change of Address keeps your direct mail list up to date with the 14% of Americans who move each year and file their change with the United States Postal Service (USPS).
- PCOA: Proprietary Change of Address finds people who move but don’t file a change of address notice with the USPS.
- Deceased Records Processing: Determine what makes sense for your organization and specific mailings. Some organizations test contacting family members of deceased donors by addressing mail “to the Smith family” or other options. Products are available that find a different person in the household for deceased names.
- Prison Suppression: Unlikely to become donors, these addresses are typically omitted from mailings.
- DMA Do Not Mail Preference File: People who have directed the DMA to remove their names from direct mail lists (now called DMAchoice) should be omitted from acquisition mailings.
- Profanity Suppression: Screens out addresses containing inappropriate words or phrases.
- Donor File Dedupe: Identifies duplicate or potential duplicate records which can be consolidated or treated in the manner best determined by your organization.
