Why Accurate Addressing Matters More Than Ever

There’s a lot that’s already been written on both the passage of postal reform and the 2006-7 postal rate case. To your never-ending relief, I have no intention to speak to either issue here.

Sure, your business life often depends on rate case. And the passage of the first new postal law in three decades is nothing to sneeze at. Nonetheless, it’s the “little stuff,” the seemingly niggling changes in postal rules and mail make-up procedures that can carry costs that might add more to the cost burden mailers have to carry than inflation-bound rate changes. As one of our board members likes to put it regarding postal rules: “Either God or the devil can be found in the details.”

An area that’s recently garnered a great deal of Postal Service attention are the many matters pertaining to addressing. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the address is the single most important mailing element as far as delivery is concerned. Think about it: If the whole purpose for sending an advertising or marketing message by mail is to make contact with the intended recipient, ensuring the recipient’s address is as accurate and complete as possible makes sense.

Alarming Number of Undeliverables
You’d never know that, though, judging by the volume of Standard mail that’s still considered undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA). Recent USPS data shows that by next year, UAA mail will reach some 10 billion pieces at a cost of some $1.6 billion. This is far from small cheese, and it’s just one of the reasons why Postmaster General Jack Potter has made elimination of UAA a Postal Service priority.

Bad addressing (i.e., any address that’s erroneous or incomplete) creates other adverse effects, which, if ignored, will cost catalogers a great deal more than just the cost of paying postage on mail that will never get delivered.