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Address
Management is the term given to the continual review of Name &
Address related data, to ensure it is maintained at optimum levels
of accuracy and kept up to date.
Effective Address Management is vitally important to your business,
as the quality of your data will impact directly on your direct
marketing activities. Applying accurate name & address data
can make the difference between retaining and losing a customer.
85% of direct mail recipients agree that inaccuracies in the name
and address reflect badly on the image of your company. That's
because every time you mail to an address you mail to a person,
and people whether they are consumers or business prospects don't
like it when you get it wrong!
Good Address Management ensures that all elements of an address
are as accurate as possible.
Why does managing Address Data matter?
Managing address data is the key to major cost savings. It is
also important to your business, as the quality of address data
will impact directly on the way you communicate with your customers.
An accurate address database can make the difference between keeping
and losing a customer. In addition, your company or product values
can be enhanced - or compromised - by the overall quality of your
mailing communications.
What can more efficient management of Address
Data achieve?
Quite
simply, it could mean a greater return on your mailing investment
through the following:
| Maximum
postage discounts from Royal Mail Mailsort services for your
volume mailings. |
| Reduced
production and postage costs through elimination of duplicate
records, undeliverables and gone aways from your mailing files. |
| Increased
and accelerated response rates through the reduction in address
mistakes. |
| Enhanced
customer satisfaction, leading to greater loyalty and therefore
value. |
What is PAF?
PAF is the Royal Mail's Postcode Address File and contains all
26 million UK addresses and 1.6 million UK postcodes. PAF has
been developed for over 25 years making it the most detailed and
dynamic address database available. PAF is maintained by the Royal
Mail to help them with efficient mail sortation and delivery.
How does address management software ensure
that addresses are correct?
Address management products are based on the Royal Mail's PAF
and have been developed to provide a fast and simple way to access
the PAF data. Address management software allows users to utilise
the power of PAF in a real business environment by providing the
tools to keep databases valid and accurate.
Address management software will check all addresses against PAF
and correct or add any elements that are needed to validate the
address, either at the point of entry or in batch mode against
the whole database. With every address validated against PAF,
users will know that each address is deliverable.
How do postcodes work?
When the Royal Mail developed PAF, they wanted to assign every
property with an alpha-numeric code that could be easily identified
to improve the efficiency of the postal service. The postcode
breaks down into a number of components, as shown below:
SW4
0JT
| SW |
The
area code. There are 124 areas within the UK |
| 4 |
The
district code. There are approx. 2800 districts. |
| 0 |
The
sector code. There are approx. 9300 sectors. |
| JT |
Full
postcode level. There are approx. 1.6 million postcodes. |
How specific is a postcode?
A postcode on average covers 15 premises; this will obviously
vary between rural and urban areas. Many businesses qualify for
their own unique postcode, along with public sector bodies such
as hospitals, county councils etc.
Do
postcodes ever change?
Addresses will vary as new properties are built or existing properties
are divided into flats. With a continually growing number of premises,
an area can simply run out of new postcodes to use. When this
happens, the Royal Mail will re-code an area, which has recently
happened in Bristol, York, Southampton, Aberdeen and Reading.
Why do I need updates?
PAF is a very dynamic database reflecting the continuous changes
to properties that occur. Whether it is a new company moving into
an office block or new owners changing their house name, this
will be reflected on PAF. With every postman feeding back the
changes on their round, PAF remains up to date.
What value-add additional information can
be derived from a postcode?
From the postcode, a whole range of other data can be found which
can be used for a wide variety of purposes. As the postcode is
a fixed geographical location, information, which relates to that
point is easily found. For example, where you live indicates who
your Member of Parliament is or the TV region you reside in. Where
someone lives indicates a great deal about their lifestyle and
spending habits, making the postcode an ideal reference point
to use for any analysis
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