Maintaining Your Data

Many of our clients maintain their own client or prospect lists. It is not a stretch of the imagination to say that these databases are the lifeblood of these businesses and that proper maintenance of these databases is an important step in maintaining a revenue stream for these companies.

In order to keep these databases accurate, there are three important steps that need to be followed. The first two steps are FNBR’s responsibility, but the last and perhaps the most important step must be done by the list owner.

• Correcting the spelling of street and city names.
• Correct/Add suffixes such as Drive, Way etc.
• Correct/Add a zip code & zip plus 4
• Add missing unit numbers for businesses

The next process is called NCOA or National Change of Address. In this process your database is run against an updated post office file of address changes that have occurred during the past 48 months. When there is a match between your database and the NCOA file, the software will update to the new address that it is on file. There are cases when the post office knows that a person/family or business has moved, but they have not filed a change of address with the post office. In these cases, the address cannot be updated but is noted.

The last step in this process that needs to be done is for our clients to use the NCOA address corrections to update their databases. The reason that this is critical is that 48 months after an address correction has been filed with the post office, it is deleted from the NCOA database. During this 48 month period, FNBR has been correcting the addresses every time we do a mailing for you. The problem is that if you don’t correct the address on your database, after 48 months the NCOA software will no longer indicate that an address is incorrect. This means that your client that moved four years ago is no longer going to receive your mail and worse yet you won’t even know that. This is a lose/lose situation for you. You are paying for printing and postage that will never get to the intended recipient and you are not getting any new orders from what is now a former client because they don’t receive your mail.

To learn about all the database services we provide, please visit our Database Services page at fnbr.com/Database-Services.html. FNBR will be happy to supply you with the corrected mailing addresses each time we NCOA a file for you. Just let your sales representative know by calling 888-988-8148 or email info@fnbr.com.