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Three Key Takeaways from MMI Direct’s Direct Marketing 101 Training Sessions

The MMI Direct team is on the road and online presenting DM101 Data Processing trainings to nonprofit fundraising groups throughout the year. Here are a few highlights from these popular sessions!

Data Processing 101
  1. Understanding Data Hygiene and Merge Purge processing will help you make better business decisions about your process and your overall direct marketing program. It’s time to get empowered!
  2. Data hygiene cost-saving tactics are more critical than ever! A quality data hygiene program: 
    • Reduces your postage rates
    • Reduces printing and mailing costs
    • Improves your campaign and program performance
    • Also improves mail deliverability and gets your mail delivered faster
  3. Tailor your Merge Purge Un-duplication Strategies to the different file types in your acquisition data set and your unique program requirements.
    • Which record should be retained when duplicates are identified? Consider these criteria when assigning data set priorities: List ownership, list cost/exchange agreement, and list type: test list, retest list or continuation list
    • Customize and test your un-duplication and match criteria strategies for different list groups. A tight match allows for very few variations on a record, medium allows for moderate variations, loose allows for many variations of each data element on the record. 
    • Learn how to analyze your data hygiene and merge purge processing reports so you can identify any red flags or opportunities to improve your process.

Want to learn more? View our fun and informative on-demand trainings on YouTube:
Data Hygiene: The Basics
Acquisition Data Merge/Purge: The Basics
Extra Credit! Demystifying Acquisition Data Merge/Purge Reports

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Red keyboard key labeled Data Management emphasizes the importance of data hygiene in maintaining organized and accurate information systems.
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Understanding Data Hygiene

Understanding Data Hygiene

Data hygiene makes sure records in your mailing list are deliverable to responsive addresses by accomplishing two primary goals:

Making Sure Addresses are Deliverable:  Nothing is more wasteful than paying to mail something that is undeliverable.  Avoid doing this by completing at least the first two of the following steps before each new mailing:

  • Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) Certification:  CASS Certification software improves the addresses on your mailing list by standardizing them, adding nine-digit zip codes, and creating delivery point barcodes for each address.  CASS also converts old-style addresses like “Rural Route 1” to modern street names.
  • National Change of Address (NCOA):  With about 11% of all Americans moving each year, keeping your direct mail list up-to-date is an ongoing challenge.  Processing your list through NCOA updates all your records for which a Change of Address form has been submitted to the U.S. Postal Service with the correct forwarding address.
  • Proprietary Change of Address (PCOA):  Unfortunately, as many as 40% of Americans who move don’t bother to file a Change of Address notice with the USPS.  However, they usually do notify their cell phone company, cherished magazines, and other companies they don’t want to lose touch with.  By comparing your list to a database of address changes maintained by a consortium of such companies, you can further improve your list’s deliverability.

Omitting Non-Responsive Addresses:  There are a number of types of addresses that have far lower response rates than typical.  For example, most businesses will find that mailings addressed to jails or prisons, military personnel, nursing homes, trailer parks or vacant lots are unlikely to generate much response.  A thorough data hygiene process will remove these and other non-responsive address types from your list.

Want more information about how to use data hygiene to clean up your list?  Download our free eBook How to Use Data Hygiene to Maximize Your Direct Mail’s ROI. And if you would prefer to have experts manage your list for you, please contact John Bell at (310) 372-9010 or by emailing john@mmidirect.com.

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Want more than a cookie cutter approach?  MMI Direct dives deep into your data
to determine how best to optimize your list and maximize your direct mail ROI.

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Why It’s Crucial to Test Your Data Hygiene Options

When you consider testing ways to improve your direct mail’s response rate, you probably think first about experimenting with a different headline or a more compelling offer. But while it may not be top-of-mind, testing your data hygiene decisions can be every bit as important as testing your creative.TestDataHygiene-1024x512

Data hygiene decisions can have a surprising impact on a mailing’s return on investment. For example, someone may have decided years ago never to mail to records which were flagged as deceased. While that might seem to make sense, the surprising reality is that mailings to deceased individuals on a house list often have a solid response rate. Perhaps the surviving spouse wants to continue to contribute to the organizations the couple used to support together, or perhaps the record was incorrectly flagged as deceased. Regardless, if you never revisit that decision, you could be missing out on a substantial source of donations.

Or perhaps your mailing list has grown organically over the years without much thought being given to deliverability. It might be possible to improve the ROI of your mailings by 10% or more by eliminating records that are addressed to military bases, prisons, nursing homes, trailer parks and university addresses. Then again, not mailing to one of these types of addresses could be a terrible mistake; you really don’t know until you run a test.

Fortunately, testing your data hygiene options is easy to do. For step-by-step instructions about how to set up a test and analyze your results, please download our free eBook, How to Use Data Hygiene to Maximize Your Direct Mail’s ROI.

DataHygieneIcon300Want more than a cookie cutter approach? MMI Direct dives deep into your data
to determine how best to optimize your list and maximize your direct mail ROI.

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Using Data Hygiene to Maximize Your Direct Mail’s ROI

You’ve agonized over every word in the copy, spent hours with your designer perfecting the layout, and tested multiple calls to action. You’re finally ready to release your incredible direct mail piece into the world, right?

Not so fast. Following strong data hygiene principles can be every bit as important to your mailing’s return on investment as having a strong message and an attractive mail piece. However, many marketers don’t fully understand how to optimize the list management process for their business.

We’ve created an eBook, How to Use Data Hygiene to Maximize your direct mail's ROIMaximize Your Direct Mail’s ROI, that explains in plain English the actions you should take to ensure that the addresses on your mailing list are deliverable and that your mailing is being sent to those most likely to respond to your mailings. These topics are covered in some detail:

  1. Is every address deliverable? Nothing is more wasteful than paying to mail something that is never going to arrive.
  2. Are there addresses you should exclude from the mailing? While there’s an exception to every rule, it is unlikely that your business would profit by mailing to residents of prisons or nursing homes, for example, or to a vacant lot.
  3. How to test your key data hygiene decisions: One of the most exciting things about direct mail is that you can use hard data to make important decisions rather than relying on guesswork. The eBook explains the data hygiene decisions you should periodically test, and exactly how to do so.
  4. Understanding your data hygiene reports: The reports you receive from your data processing team contain a wealth of interesting information. On the off chance that you find them a bit confusing, the eBook explains what questions each report is designed to answer and how to understand them.

If you are interested in maximizing the response rate and ROI of your direct mail campaigns, download our free, 25-page eBook by clicking the picture below:

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Want more than a cookie cutter approach? MMI Direct dives deep into your data
to determine how best to optimize your list and maximize your direct mail ROI.

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Best Practices for Handling Deceased Records

Should you continue to mail to previous contributors who’ve been flagged as deceased? The answer to this question is more complex than you might think

Deceased Records

It is very important to be sensitive to the wishes of the grieving family members. If a family member has contacted your company to ask that no further mail be sent to the deceased, offer your condolences and immediately remove them from all future mailings.

You should also periodically match your file against one or more of the databases that contain reported deceased records. However, in this instance, it may not be a good idea to just remove these records from your house list. The surprising reality is that mailings to deceased individuals often have a solid response rate. Perhaps the surviving spouse wants to continue to contribute to the organizations the couple used to support together, or perhaps the record was incorrectly flagged as deceased.

Rather than removing any records flagged as deceased, it is usually a good idea to test the response you receive when mailing to this group of records. If you have not been automatically flagging such records up to this point, the easiest way to test this is to look at the results of one of your recent mailings. Was the return rate from mailing to this segment acceptable? If so, continue to mail to this group and retest periodically.

If there ceases to be a response to your mailings at some point, it is appropriate to flag these records and eliminate them from future mailings. We do not typically recommend including these records in a future donor reactivation campaign.

Best practices for rented acquisition lists are different. Since the family has no prior relationship with your organization, mailing to records flagged as deceased on one of these lists is less likely to be productive. For this reason, most of our clients automatically cleanse such names from the acquisition list. However, because you have no idea how detailed the update processes are for a rented list, you may want to also periodically test this decision.

Finally, you may want to consider testing “To the Family Of” in the beginning of the name field for records you believe are accurately flagged as deceased to which you plan to continue to mail.

Want more than a cookie cutter approach? MMI Direct dives deep into your data to determine how best to optimize your list and maximize your direct mail ROI.

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