Say Good-Bye to Inaccurate Data
Wonderful news for mailers! Canada Post has just introduced Smart Data Cleaner, which is a suite of beneficial, “do it yourself” data cleansing services that includes:
- Address Validation & Correction
- National Change of Address (NCAO) Processing
- Duplicate flagging
- Suppression against the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) “Do Not Contact” list
These are fee-based services and payment can be made by credit card or services can be billed against a Canada Post billing account.
Over the years, our Highland Marketing team has stressed the value of good clean data in direct marketing and these tools can help to ensure that addresses are accurate and that you are mailing to individuals and businesses at the correct addresses.
Did you know that the Canadian national average accuracy of uncleansed data is about 56%? Now, that does not mean that all 44% of the incorrect addresses would be undeliverable, but it certainly would be true for some. Additionally, marginally correct addresses also affect delivery times for mail. Our next post “Weak Data Can Kill Good Creative” is going to take a closer look at various data challenges and how they can be avoided and, in turn, maximize the effect of good creative. It will also discuss data complacency, which is far more prevalent than one might think.
Canada Post’s Smart Data Cleaner will accept a few different file formats and anyone can use these services. For clients that may need assistance, we can convert their data into the correct format, realigning data fields as may be required, and forwarding the data to Canada Post on their behalf.
One of the keys to successful data scrubbing is ensuring that the all data is in the correct fields. For example, a record cannot be corrected if street information is housed in a company name or contact name field etc. Given this, it is prudent to realign data as necessary before submitting for processing. Highland Marketing has many years of experience in the realignment of data and has developed a series of proprietary programs to assist in this process.
If you want, you can take a first hand look at the Smart Data Cleaner suite of tools. We are very excited about these new offerings from Canada Post and look forward to helping clients take advantage of them.
There is a lot to consider when using these services, including how frequently you may want to use them. We are certainly available to help in these areas and look forward to discussing related strategies with clients over the next few weeks.
Please keep an eye for our next post “Weak Data Can Kill Good Creative”, which we hope to post by then end of this week.
In the interim, if there are any questions regarding data challenges or Canada Post’s new Smart Data Cleaner services, please do not hesitate to give us a call.
