23 March 2011

Capscan Provide Businesses with Tips on How to Save Your Mailings from the Royal Mail Shredder

In response to the recent reports this week that the Royal Mail send 25 million items of post to be shredded every year, with business mail forming the majority of the items, Capscan, a leading provider of international address management solutions and data integrity services, is offering businesses some practical steps they can take to prevent their mail, time and money going to the shredder.

The revelation, published by the Daily Mail was made following a Freedom of Information request, and regarded the fact that senders “provide little or no information to identify their intended location” to be the main reason for the sheer amount of undelivered post.

Managing Director of Capscan, Terry Hiles, says: “Carrying out direct marketing is costly and inefficient if the customer database contains poor quality data. This results in millions of businesses mailings being destroyed because they are not reaching their intended recipient. Businesses who ensure that their data is cleansed of incorrect and out of date data will save money by reducing undelivered mail.” “

Mail that is incorrectly addressed to the recipient can not only cause the item to go undelivered, but it also has a negative impact on customer perception of your brand and affects a business’s ability to make effective marketing decisions.” He adds “There are products for basic address management that can both cleanse and correct data before a company spends precious time and money on mailings, which may not be delivered as well as various suppression data sets and change of address databases that can be used to reduce returns and, wherever possible, ensure delivery to the correct recipient.”

“An additional simple and basic check is to ensure that the postage is correct. The Royal Mail has recently tightened the rules on what is deemed a large envelope and a standard envelope. Often, direct marketing contains more than one page of paper and can often be underpaid. Ensure that you are aware of the weight and size of the mail before attaching postage and monitor the stuffing process to ensure that there are no anomalies in size,” concludes Hiles.

Capscan’s top tips for avoiding the shredder:

• Address business mail clearly and correctly – use data cleansing to ensure that incorrect or out of date addresses are removed. The Royal Mail offer their own Postcode Address File (PAF), a database containing all known UK addresses and Postcodes, which can be used for this and other specific B2B databases are also available.
• Personalise the mail to the correct recipient, failure to do so may mean it reaches the correct location, but not the correct destination and will negatively impact a customer’s perception.
• Ensure that postage is correct and mail piece meets the requisite sizing requirements.  Monitor the stuffing process to ensure there are no anomalies.
  

For further advice on direct mailing or on any of Capscan’s address management products including Matchcode Commercial, a business to business address management software, please contact Capscan’s press office on capscanpr@mccint.com. To read the original article on the Royal Mail’s announcement please click here.