About one in six Americans move each year. If you are mailing to customers and inquirers whose addresses you’ve had for years, you are likely throwing away a large part of your marketing budget.

Before any mailing, you should have your printer or mail shop “scrub” your list. They can run it against the NCOA (National Change of Address) database to identify people who have moved and give you the option to mail to the new addresses. In addition, they can CASS Certify your list to identify potentially “undeliverable” addresses resulting from mis-typed or otherwise incorrect data.  Lastly, their software can quickly identify duplicate addresses in your database, eliminating the wasted postage and avoiding the damage your brand can incur when you mail two pieces to one address.

The first time you do this, don’t be surprised if you throw out half of your list…the bad half.