Every day, the US Postal Service processes and delivers approximately 430 million pieces of mail. Unfortunately, a fraction of these items will never make their way to their intended recipients. While there are many factors along the way that can contribute to postal delays and nondelivered assets, the best line of defense starts by ensuring an address is accurate and deliverable before a package or piece of mail begins its journey through the mailing system.
But how can you determine which addresses are valid and whether mail should be shipped to a given location? In this article, we delve into Delivery Point Validation and why this process is crucial for any business that markets to or serves their customers by mail.
What is delivery point validation?
A verified address is not synonymous with a deliverable one. Although you may think you're ready to send marketing materials, goods, and mail as a whole to consumers once you have a complete and existing address, it's crucial to go the extra step to ensure that these addresses can be delivered to as well. This is where Delivery Point Validation comes into play.
Delivery Point Validation, or DPV®, surpasses the standard procedure of validating an address’s formatting by ensuring that the aforementioned address can receive mail. Let’s take a look at an example below.
Say that a business’s database states that a client, John Smith, lives at 20 Cherry Lane. The business wants to send marketing material to John, so they ship these resources out to the address in their database. At quick glance, the address appears complete with the consumer's name, street, city, and zip code. But, it turns out that John's address is 2 Cherry Lane, and 20 Cherry Lane is an empty lot – meaning John never received any material sent to him by this company.
DPV® prevents issues like this from happening by checking a submitted address against an authoritative database that verifies its deliverability. Additionally, DPV® confirms the apartment or suite number when applicable as well, which is helpful for users who live in multi-unit dwellings where an address is shared. While 2 Cherry Lane is an actual address and exists, DPV® would have been able to confirm that this address was non-deliverable before any mail was sent to this location.
Delivery points vs addresses
It’s important to note that a delivery point is not the same as an address, as a street address may have multiple delivery points. As the name indicates, a delivery point refers to a unique place where postal workers can deliver or hand off mail to the recipient, including:
- Mailboxes or mail slots
- PO Boxes
- Units
- Offices
DPV® utilizes the most recent USPS data to confirm deliverable addresses with a unique 11-digit code, which consists of a ZIP+4 coding system plus an additional two digits that can narrow a location down to
the delivery point. While these codes can change frequently, DPV® accesses the most up-to-date data provided by USPS—providing any organization sending out mail with the peace of mind that may not be offered with a simple standard address.
Why DPV® matters for your business
As mentioned above, having a complete address isn't enough to confidently answer the question, "can I ship materials to this location?" DPV® goes the extra step by confirming that a known USPS address accepts mail while notifying the sender of any potential barriers for delivery, too.
Some of the benefits offered by DPV® include:
1. Cleansed and more complete data
When the delivery point for an address is verified, your address data is more complete and standardized. Mature data is superior data, and with the added information appended by delivery point verification, you can now identify where—and if—mail will be handed off to your recipients. This added address data will also come in handy if you ever need to deduplicate or harmonization data at a future date.
2. Higher customer satisfaction and engagement
With DPV®, you can confirm an address’s deliverability before sending out mail or packages. This means that customers are more likely to receive their mail without any hiccups or delays. When consumers receive their mail as intended, they’re more likely to become loyal, repeat clients.
Businesses that use mail-based marketing campaigns oftentimes plan their campaigns with strict timeframes in mind. If you send out advertisements or announcements that are time-sensitive, they need to reach the recipient by a designated date. Because DPV® reduces the likelihood of returned mail, marketing campaigns reach recipients just in time—leading to higher engagement with material that is mailed out, too.
3. Fewer financial losses
Shipping materials out to the wrong address costs money. When an address proves to be undeliverable, businesses confront processing fees for returned mail and packages. Oftentimes, they bear the burden of shipping these items out to the correct address the second time around, also. Ensuring the accuracy of a delivery point with DPV® before sending out mail significantly reduces the costs associated with redelivery and the loss of potentially unsatisfied customers.
Our recent annual research report emphasizes the overarching importance of a data-driven business—and enhancing your existing address database is just the first step. With DPV®, you’ll have the added peace of mind necessary to know that your business is taking the measures needed to reduce costs, increase data maturity, and keep your clients happy.
Interested in enhancing your address data with DPV®? Speak with a data quality expert today.
