Customer List Services & Data Augmentation
Every month, about three percent of customer contact and CRM data becomes obsolete. People get hired, get promoted, get fired. They change phone numbers, sell their houses and retire from their jobs. Those changes mean that over the course of a year, a third of your list is inaccurate – and more importantly — impotent. Cleaning up your data is an essential task that can make or break your sales efforts for years to come.
There are plenty of companies that claim to offer list append services, but if you want a list that gets real results, you need to invest in a firm that specializes in data.
That’s where we come in.
We know data: We live it, breathe it and know what it can do.
Our team of data scientists know how to dig in and make the updates that will maximize results. But more than that, we fundamentally understand how to help you turn your data into tangible results that will make a difference for your sales team – and your bottom line.
Investing in the right tools for the job also means investing in the right agency – one that can hone your list into a lead generation tool primed for success.
Data Hygiene Services
Address validation
If you’re doing direct mail, this is where it all begins. And where it can all end. Standardizing and validating the addresses in your list should be done on a regular basis to ensure your message is delivered. Address validation will also reduce your mailing and printing cost by optimizing your list to United States Postal Service standards and eliminating duplicate or defunct addresses. Our address validation services include:
- Duplicate detection to save on costs
- Change of address implementation
- Integrate Zip+4 for discounts and faster mailing
- Mailing list clean-up for correct abbreviations
NCOA Link
Do you know where your customers are? Nearly 10 percent of Americans move every year. But they are not moving very far. About two-thirds of those moves are within the same county and about 20 percent are within the same state. Even if they move, your customers can still be your customers, especially if you can still reach them with your marketing message. NCOA Link is the system the United States Postal Service employs to track change of address forms – and comprehensive list append services incorporate that system to keep track of customer moves.
- Digital updates – no need for data entry services
- Reduce mailing costs – An updated list means fewer forwarding charges
- Maintain contact with your customers
- Update your list before your mail
Suppression
It’s easy to think bigger is better, but there are several reasons why it makes sense to eliminate addresses on your list. Our suppression services will identify and eliminate those addresses, saving you money on print and mail costs. Deceased: One of the most common reasons to take someone off your list is because they’ve passed away. Direct Marketing Association Choice: Individuals who don’t wish to receive direct mail can register their choice with the DMA. Eliminating these addresses will not only save costs but will also keep you compliant with Direct Marketing Association policy. Assisted Living Facility: Individuals who are in assisted living may not be appropriate recipients of direct mail sales efforts for a variety of reasons. Incarceration: Incarcerated people are most likely not good prospects. Reduce your costs by removing these addresses from your list.
DSF-2
Delivery Sequence File – Second Generation identifies addresses that are deliverable and can be used to eliminate addresses that aren’t. Updated every two months, the DSF-2 database contains every address the USPS can deliver to – more than 165 million records. Processing your list via that database can save you thousands in mailing costs.
- Qualify for discounts including saturation, high density and Enhanced Carrier Route
- Get the best rates by identifying door slot, curb or box delivery types
- Identify if an address is a business or residence
- Determine if a home is occupied seasonal
Email Validation
No matter which email client you are using, high bounce rates are a red flag and using a list that is outdated can result in a sender being blacklisted. Email validation ensures that every address on your list is clean and error free, reducing bounces and getting your message where it needs to be. Our services include:
- Eliminate temporary emails so your message will reach its target
- Validate domains and check ISPs for inactive and parked domains and invalid accounts
- Remove emails with errors in form and function
- Identify and remove duplicate emails
Dedupe
Whether you’ve merged multiple lists together or relied on not-always-reliable data entry, large lists can often contain duplicate entries and unwanted information. Purging those duplicates, known as dedupe, is an essential component of maintaining a productive sales database. The team of data scientist can dedupe your list, giving you a clean list that reduces your mailing costs and avoids annoying your customers with duplicate contacts. If you need to merge more than one list, let us do the work for you, so you can rely on:
- Best records from multiple sources
- Detailed reports
- Custom suppression lists
PCOA
Even though millions of people move every year, not everyone completes a change of address form at the post office. Losing access to those individuals – particularly if they are your regular customers – can cost your company in the long term. Private change of address services can collect new addresses for existing customers. Utilizing a number of databases, including credit cards and magazine publishers, we can make sure you maintain contact with customers that may have moved without providing the USPS with a change of address form.
Canadian NCOA & Address Validation
Thanks to North American treaties, many of your customers may be north of the border. Our Canadian NCOA and Address Validation service allows you to maintain contact with Canadian customers in the same way you do with your customers in the United States. Using this service, you’ll be able to:
- Keep your records updated with customers’ current address
- Avoid duplication and the resulting increase in printing and mailing costs
- Get to know your customers better by understanding their neighborhoods and needs
PCOA Plus
If your list needs a comprehensive overall, you need PCOA Plus. Utilizing a broad base of datasets, including LexisNexis, we’ll track down expired change of address forms, verify name changes and identify deceased individuals. Once your list has gone through our thorough PCOA Plus integration and review, you can count on:
- Better return on investment – knowing your message is getting to the right individual provides better targeting and more effective messaging.
- Lowered cost – eliminate entries that are non-responsive
- Better cost per acquisition – as well as better retention of existing customers
Data Enhancement
Apartment Append
Apartment and suite numbers are frequently left off addresses, leading to entries that are undeliverable at worst and delayed at best. An essential component of data enhancement, apartment append service will find – and add – apartment numbers for individuals and suite numbers for businesses. Lack of accurate apartment and suite numbers will also lead to lost customers in the future as complete addresses are required in order to receive new addresses from NCOA Link.
Demographics
Whether you’re selling baby supplies, recreational vehicles or riding lawn mowers, knowing your customers means you will know how to inspire those customers to purchase your products or services. Demographic information allows you to customize your messaging to best appeal to your customers when they need your services. Adding demographic information to your list lets you maximize your messaging and increase the return on your marketing investment. Demographic information includes:
- Household income
- Family and marital status
- Date of birth
- Home value, dwelling type and length of residence
- Hobbies and interests
Firmographics
Just like demographics for individual purchasers, firmographics let you optimize your business-to-business messaging by reaching out to the right companies at the right time. By including firmographic information as you craft your messaging and fine tune your marketing budget, you can identify your best prospects and create a marketing program that works to create long-term relationships. Firmographic data available includes:
- Number of employees
- Sales data and volume
- Contact names
- NCAIS code and description
- Number of years in business
Phone Append
Not everything is digital. Calling your customers is still an incredibly effective way to increase sales and maintain relationships. All we need is name and mailing address and we can add a phone number to your customer list. With our phone append service there’s no need to worry about being that annoying telemarketer. All telephone numbers that we add are cross referenced to national and state Do Not Call lists, ensuring that you are not reaching out to anyone who doesn’t want to hear from you.
Email Append
Your customers expect to hear from you via email, but there are a number of reasons you may not have access to their email address. With access to extensive array of email databases, we can match your customers with their email and append your list with that valuable information.
- Maximize your marketing by adding email as a channel
- Reduce direct mailing costs
- Get the most accurate and up-to-date email address for each customer
Geocode
Have more than one location and just one list? Geocode services allow you to sort your customer list into locations so that you can accurately reach out to customers with messaging from each individual location. Whether each location has different hours, inventory or pricing, you can share your messaging with the customers most likely to visit that location. Geocode data is available at two levels:
- Zip + 4 is typically accurate to a few hundred feet
- Address level is accurate to individual homes or building
Reverse Phone Append
A list composed of customer phone numbers can be expanded to provide addresses as well as demographic data. This allows your sales and marketing team to:
- Share additional messaging via direct mail
- Customize your messaging to your customers’ needs and wants
- Maintain customer relationships
- Encourage additional transactions through multi-channel marketing
Reverse Email Append
As email inboxes become overwhelmed, your customers are responding to different channels. Direct mail effectiveness has seen a resurgence as customers appreciate a concrete message from their mailbox. Utilizing databases and datasets, we can turn your email list into a mailing list, allowing your marketing and sales team to reach out to their customers in an old-school way that is finding a renewed effectiveness.
Merge/Purge
Combining lists from several different sources can either leave you with a list fraught with errors and incomplete entries or provide you with a clean, updated master list that incorporates everything your team needs to get the most out of your marketing and sales efforts. Merging duplicate entries and purging unnecessary redundancies is a process that can easily overwhelm service providers who are unfamiliar with managing large sets of data. Our process has been honed over decades to create a system that maximizes the accurate data while eliminating inaccuracies.
To get a project started or request a quote, contact us to schedule a free consultation.