Long-Range MISSIVES

INTERNATIONAL ADDRESSES used to represent only small segments of many organizations’ databases. That’s all changed, thanks to the Internet and the globalization of today’s marketplace.

Historically, international addresses were segregated and processed outside normal channels in many direct marketing programs. This was due in part to a perceived high risk associated with attempting to mail promotions to other countries. Inconsistent address quality, coupled with high postage costs, can make such efforts expensive and often unprofitable.

There have been two underlying problems with international address quality. One was the difficulty in storing and manipulating this data in traditional domestic customer databases, while the other was a lack of address standardization tools capable of handling international data.

Let’s look at the growing number of products and services for cleaning up international addresses and consider a few strategies for enhancing capabilities to capture, store and utilize international data.

Optimizing International Data

Unfortunately, many older databases were not developed with much forethought to capturing foreign data elements. Most businesses in the United States started with a focus on the domestic market and became adept at managing U.S. customer address information. However, as companies grow internationally, more pressure is placed on the underlying legacy database, which often requires certain data elements to be forced into fields not originally designed for them. In some cases, firms develop and maintain two separate databases for U.S. and international customers.

With the global scope of business today, these methods hamper a company’s ability to get a true sense of its customer universe. In order to optimize the usability of international customer data, some changes to the physical database may be required.

Examples of the possible modifications to a typical U.S. record layout to allow for international data include:

• Extending the length of fields to accommodate longer names and addresses.

• Modifying the phone and fax number fields to include a country code and more than 10 digits.

• Lengthening address fields to include an Address1, Address2 and perhaps even an Address3 and Address4.

• Supporting expanded character and/or Unicode character sets.

• Evaluating the rules behind the postal (ZIP) code field to allow for alphabetical characters and spaces.

• Adding fields for country name, region name and geographic code (Asia, Europe, Sales Territory 1, etc.).

• Parsing first name, last name and possibly multiple last names (e.g., Hispanic names).

• Accommodating multiple international currencies.

Not only is it important to consider the process of getting data into the database, it is also necessary to plan for how the data will be used. Reporting and query requirements may have an impact on the rules behind certain fields.

For example, if you need to prepare regular reports on marketing activities by world regions, you will need to make sure that the database can support aggregated counts based on this field. If you intend to personalize each mail piece, you will have to ensure that the first name field is always populated. If you segment your mailing lists by postal code, you will want to be certain you can tell the difference, say, between a Canadian postal code and one from the United Kingdom.

Evaluate your database design to make sure it allows for storing international data in a manageable format for reporting, querying, sorting, viewing and exporting (to a mail house or an outside vendor).

Address Standardization
NCOA. LACS. DSF. CASS. AEC.

There is a veritable alphabet soup of services available to U.S. marketers for validating and standardizing their customer addresses. While there have been great advances in automating domestic mail processes, it wasn’t long ago that direct marketers relied on manual, time-intensive practices for preparing mailings to U.S. households. The U.S. Postal Service has done an admirable job of working with service bureaus and mailers to provide programs such as National Change of Address (NCOA), Locatable Address Conversion System (LACS), Delivery Sequence Files (DSF), Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) and Address Element Correction (AEC).

But what about addresses outside North America? To date, there has been little assistance available for validating and correcting these addresses. For the most part, companies have had to rely on the accuracy of those inputting the data. And typically, only a few experienced team members can identify issues with address formats, let alone handle incorrect postal codes, first name-last name confusion or missing address elements.

Thankfully, however, technology is catching up with the expansion of global business. Companies like Group 1, Firstlogic, Trillium (Harte-Hanks) and Global-Z offer a range of tools and services for enhancing the reliability of international mailing files.

Group 1 offers the Code-1 Plus International product and provides data quality services for over 200 countries by utilizing postal address files from postal administrations around the world. The countries are organized into three categories (A, B and C) depending on the level of address processing available.

Category A performs street level, city, province, country and postal code verification and correction for countries such as Mexico, Japan, most of Western Europe and some countries in Asia, Africa and South America.

In Category B, services go to the city, province, country and postal code level for Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Eastern Europe and several other countries throughout the Pan-Pacific, the Middle East and Central America.

Category C provides address formatting support for more than 220 countries.

Firstlogic’s International Address Quality products also use international address directories to correct addresses to the standards put forth by the Universal Postal Union, a consortium of postal representatives from 189 member countries. Eighteen country-specific engines standardize addresses, correct missing address information and assign postal codes to either the premise (dwelling unit) level or address level. Premise-level services are available for the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands along with the United States and Canada. Address-level assignments can be made for much of the remainder of Western Europe. A