Clean Up Your Prospect List for Better ROI

If you’ve read our earlier post, you already know that a finely-tuned prospect list is your most powerful marketing asset. And if that’s true, it means keeping that list healthy and up-to-date is a critical "Must Do" for every small business owner.

A clean prospect list holds many benefits for small business owners. It means better, more targeted emails. It means fewer complaints when you’re sending the right message to the right person. And it means better ROI by not wasting dollars on old email addresses or people not as likely to convert. It’s a win-win.

But without proper upkeep, your once-updated prospect list can quickly fall out of date as your customers move, change their addresses or experience changes in the household. Because we understand how important mailing list hygiene is to your marketing efforts, we’ve included a number of tools and services to help you keep a fresh, targeted list.

For your convenience, all of these tools are available directly from the MyAcxiomPartner application.

Address Quality Services

Address Quality services ensure sure you’re still sending mail to the correct address and that your audience hasn’t moved. You can update your list, using the following tools in MyAcxiomPartner:

  • Address Standardization: This tool reduces the number of incomplete and undeliverable addresses. It parses and standardizes addresses, city names and state abbreviations to USPS specifications. It verifies, corrects and applies 5-digit zip codes, zip+4 codes, delivery point bar code numbers and carrier route codes. Finally, Address Standardization performs DPV processing to validate delivery points or identify erroneous delivery addresses.
  • National Change of Address (NCOA): This USPS service provides SMBs with current change of address information to reduce undeliverable mail and increase response rates.
  • Proprietary Change of Address (PCOA): This service includes the USPS’ NCOA file and a supplemental proprietary change-of-address file. Records processed through NCOA that are non-matches or matches with no forwarding address will be processed against the supplemental file to recognize additional moves. PCOA appends missing address information such as apartment numbers and corrects street number transpositions.

Deduplication Services

Do you know the company that, every year, sends you four copies of its latest catalog? Our Deduplication Services make sure you don’t become that company.

  • Individual Deduplication: This service dedupes each individual living at one address based on first names. If you want to send mailings to more than one person in a household (say, mom and grandma), the Individual level will recognize and keep addresses of separate individuals living at one address.
  • Household Deduplication: This service dedupes lists based on the last names associated with each address. Data can recognize that people with the same last name are part of the same family at the same address and only include one listing within your completed job. Data can also recognize if there is more than one family living at one address and include listings for both.
  • Address Deduplication: This service dedupes your list so only one mailing goes to each specific address. If there were four entries with the same address on your list, only one entry would be kept.
  • Phone Number Deduplication: This service dedupes your list so that only one mailing goes to each specific phone number. If there were four entries with the same phone number on your list, only one entry would be kept.

Suppression Services

Just because you have someone’s mailing address in your system doesn’t mean you should be contacting him or her. Our Suppression Services help stop that.

  • DMA Mail Suppression: Responsible marketers must respect a consumer’s contact preferences. Using the DMA’s mail suppression file on direct mail campaigns not only helps protect a consumer’s privacy but also saves time, money and goodwill.
  • Deceased Suppression: This flags deceased individuals that have been recognized on public records.
  • Taxes, Liens and Judgments Suppression: This flags individuals who have an unpaid tax, lien or judgment against them. Due to FCRA regulations, these flags are blended with deceased and cannot be used to determine credit worthiness.
  • Bankruptcy Suppression: This flags individuals who have filed for bankruptcy. Due to FCRA regulations, the bankruptcy flags are blended with deceased and cannot be used to determine credit worthiness.
  • Prison Suppression: This flags individuals who have been recognized on public records to be in prison to save marketing costs. Due to FCRA regulations, the prison flags are blended with deceased.
  • Underage Suppression: This service can help you dramatically improve your marketing results by eliminating non-responders — those under the age of 18. It can also help you pinpoint individuals on your target list who you would want to suppress from your marketing campaigns.

Email Append

If you’re not currently collecting your customer’s email information, MyAcxiomPartner can append this data to your customer files through a permission-based process. Here’s how it works:

  1. Upload your customer database. This list has to be for current customers only (not prospects) and must meet certain requirements.
  2. Once uploaded, you customize a permission email that will be sent to everyone on your list, asking them if they would like to receive marketing from your company and giving them the option to opt out.
  3. Acxiom will append the email address to your data and send out a permission email.
  4. Upon receiving the permission email, consumers will have the option to do nothing and opt in, or opt out and not receive any further emails.
  5. In approximately 10 days, Acxiom will send you back a list of email addresses for customers who have not opted out.

This is a great option for SMBs who are looking to reach current customers in new ways.

Email Verification

Email verification services ensure that you’re only sending emails to addresses that are valid and still in use. This not only helps maintain a positive reputation with email service providers, but it also saves you money as you avoid paying for invalid or outdated email addresses.

You can also use our List Enhancement Services to fill in any missing information you may about your prospects, or to add new demographic or psychographic data.

Like most tools in your marketing toolbox, your prospect list isn’t one you can set and forget. By practicing mailing list hygiene, MyAcxiomPartner can help you update stale information to ensure you’re targeting the most relevant people possible. It’s the secret to a higher ROI.

For a comprehensive guide to attracting new leads and better customers, download our best practice guide!