Archive for the ‘UAA’ tag
Addressing direct-mail deliverability and anti-marketing initiatives
An informative inteview with Nanci Langley, vice chairman, Postal Regulatory Commission. Has to do with Move Update, UAA Mail, and misguided Do-Not-Mail initiatives.
Addressing direct-mail deliverability and anti-marketing initiatives :: BtoB Magazine.
UAA Undeliverable as Addressed Mail
This item caught my eye today, from www.postcom.org:
The Associated Press has reported that “The IRS on Thursday announced its own little economic bailout plan, worth about $266 million, for taxpayers who didn’t get their economic stimulus checks or regular income tax refunds the first time around because they couldn’t be found. The tax agency said it couldn’t deliver about 279,000 rebate checks worth about $163 million coming from the economic stimulus package that Congress enacted last February. It said the U.S. Postal Service returned about 104,000 regular refund checks totaling about $103 million because of address errors.” [EdNote: Now that puts a really personal price tag on UAA mail.]
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That bears repeating — “the U.S. Postal Service returned about 104,000 regular refund checks totaling about $103 million because of address errors.” Much has been communicated regarding the cost of UAA mail to the Postal Service, and to mailers - this is a great example of the cost of UAA mail to mail recipients. What other critical mail items are recipients missing, completely unaware?
Food for thought, this makes UAA efforts even more important for both mailers and mail recipients.
(UAA) Undeliverable-As-Addressed
I will be picking a random (or often timely!) mailing term to define and take a closer look at. Today’s post is regarding Undeliverable-As-Addressed mail.
What is UAA Mail?
Definition from Answers.com:
Mail that has an invalid, incomplete, or illegible address. Undeliverable-as-addressed mail is costly for direct marketers, not only because it involves wasted package and postage expense, but also because a high undeliverable-as-addressed volume can negatively impact response to such an extent that the marketer incorrectly assumes the mailing was unsuccessful. Undeliverable first-class mail is automatically returned to the sender by the U.S. Postal Service. For a small fee the USPS will return other classes of mail. Direct marketers should track undeliverable-as-addressed volumes by list, so that lists with a high proportion of bad addresses will not be used or rented again.
Why should anyone care about UAA Mail?
In fiscal year 2004, the Postal Service handled 9.7 billion pieces of undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail at a cost of $1.85 billion. Those costs get passed on to all mailers. An efficient automated mailstream works best when mailpieces have complete, correct and up-to-date addresses. Standard Mail accounted for 62.8 percent of all UAA mail volume, which is one of the reasons the USPS has extended Move update requirements to include Standard Mail, in addition to First-Class Move update requirements. Both mailers and the USPS have the same goal of delivery of the mailpiece to the intended recipient in an efficient manner. Reducing UAA mail by taking advantage of tools like ACS Address Change Service and Move update processing is more than a sound investment, it is a necessary one.
Questions? Comments? Comment the blog, or feel free to contact me directly at Lisa.Bowes@intelisent.com
Best wishes,
Lisa
