Customer Intelligence Blog

How many times have you been the recipient of a mail piece addressed to someone else? What usually crosses your mind when this happens? If you’re in the Direct Mail Marketing business, you think of the steps that did or did not take place that should have before this piece went out. But if you’re NOT in the business, which sums up the majority of the population, you most likely toss this piece in the trash without much thought, other than a glance at the sender’s name.

While the advertising element is still there, three very crucial elements are now at stake: Credibility, timeliness and relationship. Do you think more, or less of the companies that you now know have incorrect information? On a credibility scale, these companies have dropped a notch or two in most recipients’ books, simply because their data is wrong. If they can’t get your name right, can you trust them?

Let’s turn the tables around for a minute and move from the prospect’s perspective, to a business perspective. Obviously data integrity is of utmost importance with any mail campaign, and many companies have become more aware of NCOA processing, mainly due to more stringent regulations set by the USPS since 2008 (and of course, the postal discounts that come with that coveted NCOA certificate).

But the benefits of NCOA processing go far beyond a postal discount.

While maybe you suppress your current customers from your upcoming mail campaign, do you still know where your current customers live?

With Altair Customer Intelligence’s unique product line-up, we cater to client’s needs by outlining NCOA specifics. Here are some key elements that you should always ask when it comes to NCOA:

1. What is your NCOA time-frame window?

NCOA tracks moves in blocks by months. Most NCOA processing tracks moves within the past 18 months. Anything beyond may or may not be captured. While 48 –month processing is available, it is not typically the standard.

2. Should I NCOA my customer file?

You should always NCOA your customer file for a mail campaign, but it is at your discrepancy whether or not to NCOA the file for suppression purposes. There are many moves that might not have a forwarding address. At Altair we give the option to retain original addresses as well as new addresses in order to reduce the chance of re-prospecting your customers.

3. When was my data file processed through NCOA?

This is important to receive the postal discount. The current USPS standard is that your data file be processed through NCOA in the past 90 days.

4. What happens to the records that match in NCOA (the movers)?

This is an important aspect of the NCOA processing. Depending on your product and projected prospect group, the decision to keep or drop these records is an important decision. At Altair our experienced sales team can coach you through these decisions in order to achieve your goal. While a New Mover campaign would benefit from keeping the records with new addresses, a Home Refinance campaign might not. There are many ways that this processing could also work as a suppression step when trying to eliminate movers within a certain timeframe.