Starting Right from the Beginning

By: Justin Jackson, Donnelley Marketing

For many years the direct marketing industry has accepted the fact
that when converting incoming files from one layout to another only
a certain percentage of the information will be successfully
captured. It may be the result of a human error when entering the
data to begin with or it may be a result of an error when
processing the data at its source. Even with today's modern
technology, the 90-10 rule still holds true. Many companies that
receive files the blame the provider, some go the extra mile to
make corrections, and some fall in between. This portion of the
overall solution is not glamorous and does not appear significant
but upon further review the impact of a proper conversion is
exponential. Moving data from one layout to another is mostly a
manual process, dependant on human examination of the layout
generated from the source company providing the list. But even the
cleanest lists have instances where data doesn't match the layout
exactly; street directionals can easily be omitted, titles can be
misidentified, and personal names and business names can be
transposed. Small inaccuracies may not seem unimportant on the
surface but a deeper look at traditional processing exposes the
truth.

Inaccurate information at the source affects all aspects of
traditional data preparation. Data that is not in the proper field
or is missing completely affects the match rates to postal and
proprietary hygiene services. The National Change of Address file
is strictly supervised, the matching logic utilized follows rigid
regulations. A small deviation will cause a record to be
classified as a NIXIE, a "likely" but unconfirmed match to the NCOA
database. Most companies drop NIXIE's from their prospecting
efforts. If an NCOA match had been returned the record could have
been mailed.

Additionally, these inaccuracies will impact how the mail files
match each other in a merge purge environment and how they match
demographic databases in append processes. Mailing duplicates or
not properly recognizing a household can damage response rates.
Without proper demographics, model scoring can be impacted and
basic targeting decisions are made without proper information.

Finally, postal savings are lost when records cannot be sorted to
the proper levels due to missing or inaccurate information.
Carrier route walk sequence discounts or saturation discounts can
be lost as a result. These costs along with the loss in revenue
from lower response rates are much greater than any additional cost
for properly loading and converting a file. Furthermore, this
attitude cuts against the spirit of one to one marketing. If a
mailer doesn't care enough to properly identify who they are
mailing at the outset, the financial impact can be significant.
However, the psychological impact can be much greater if a customer
or prospect doesn't feel the company is invested in a one to one
marketing strategy. Taking this first step at the beginning of a
project is more significant that many businesses realize.