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.

For instance, very few mailers cull their lists of the names of deceased persons. Mailing to the dead, particularly after survivors have made an effort to have the mailings stop, leaves the impression that either commercial mailers are insensitive louts or the cost of postage is way too cheap, and a more sizeable rate increase is well in order. Mailing to the deceased, underage children or Bosco the dog serves only to stoke the ardor of those who believe government should stem the flow of unsolicited, unwanted mail by creating mandatory “do-not-mail” lists, just as is the case today with do-not-call, do-not-fax or do-not-e-mail lists.

Every medium used by businesses for communication and commerce comes with constraints unique to that medium. The ad you’d publish in a newspaper often is nothing like the ad you’d air on TV. Likewise, the ad you’d air on the radio often will have remarkably different characteristics than the written offer you put in your catalog.

Mail’s Constraints
Mail is a medium, and it requires those who use it to observe its constraints. For instance, the single most important facet of any advertisement or marketing message that’s distributed via mail is the address. It’s the equivalent to the 10 digits most of us dial when we use the phone, or the e-mail address that must be correct in all regards if our message is expected to go to our intended recipient.

How addressing information is used to ensure proper distribution and delivery has been undergoing significant change for the past several years. Today, more mail is sorted and routed by machines than people. Machines read written characters and convert them into binary digits, which form the language machines can interpret. Addresses that are incomplete or wrong in any way fail to provide modern mail-sorting equipment with the information it needs to ensure proper routing and distribution.

Stiffer Addressing Requirements
To get addresses in ideal form, the USPS is stepping up requirements with which mailers will be expected to comply to qualify for the lower postage that goes with mailer work-sharing. The USPS has instituted more stringent addressing rules in conjunction with its implementation of the 2007 postal rate increase. It’s informing mailers now of the even more stringent requirements that will be applied in the very near future.

In postal vernacular, the rules for proper addressing are operating now in what we call the Cycle-L environment of the USPS’s Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS). The Postal Service has begun to educate suppliers and mailers about its Cycle-M requirements, which will take effect Aug. 1, 2008.

An example of addressing rules for Cycle M is the new requirement for mailers to process their lists against the Postal Service’s LACS database to convert rural-route addresses into their city-style equivalents. While Cycle L allows for leeway regarding incorporating LACS changes into their actual mailing databases, the rules next summer will require it.

Further, Cycle M rules also will require manufacturers to offer an option known as SuiteLink, which allows mailers to run their addresses against a new USPS addressing product that can append any relevant apartment or suite number information to a business address.

Next: Move Update
This is only the beginning. The USPS has announced its intention to require all users of Standard mail to process their addresses through Move Update — yet another USPS product for updating names and addresses used in a mailing.

Catalogers need to remember that the rules governing postal addressing are being stepped up. While this article may not be the place to detail all the addressing changes that have been made already, or those that are on the way, the message is that closer attention will need to be paid to this one particular mail characteristic.

The USPS is convinced high-quality addressing and properly printed associated delivery point barcodes will enhance greatly the processing and delivery of mail. The tools available to catalogers and their service suppliers are aplenty. Now’s the time to take steps to ensure every penny you invest in marketing by mail has the greatest potential to add to your company’s bottom line.

Gene Del Polito is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom), a trade group serving bulk advertising mailers. You can reach him at (703) 524-0096 or genedp@postcom.org.

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