How To Submit Your List
Acceptable List Formats
When submitting your mailing list, we
will review it for basic format, and to
ensure it can be processed by our system. There are a few ways that you can make your list processing as quick and painless as possible.
We prefer lists
to be submitted as PC based "text, tab
delimited" or "text, comma delimited" files. However, we do accept
MAC files, but they must be saved or
exported in one of the following file formats with the correct
file extention typed into the the filename: .txt, .ascII, .asc, .csv, or .xls.
If you submit your list
in a different format, it may need to be
converted which could result in
processing delays and additional costs.
Most people open their mailing lists in Excel. This is perfectly acceptable if a few requirements are followed.
First, excel documents should ONLY include one "sheet." Multiple sheets are not picked up by our sorting software and you risk part of your list being left out of the processing if you use multiple sheets.
Secondly, only include the information relevant to your mailing. If you have additional fields that are not part of the mailing, please don't include them.
Any markup, design, or layout elements to your mailing list may affect the way your list is sorted. Please include only the fields required for your direct mail campaign.
Note: We do NOT accept Cheshire
labels, tapes, tape cartridges or DAT
tapes.
Digital Formats
- Tab-delimited
- CSV (Comma Separated Values,
also called "Comma-delimited")
- ASCII
- DBF III
- MS Excel (Multiple
worksheets within a single file
will be processed as separate
lists)
Mailing Labels We will not hand apply mailing list labels.
Organizing Your Database
Your database should be set up so that
each record is contained in its own row. Rows are horizontal lines of fields in the mailing list. The first row of your mailing list should include the names of the fields and the second row should be the first "record" in your database.
We do not accept
lists containing addresses that are
separated into multiple rows. This
includes lists in mailing label format.
All data for each record must be
contained within the same row in the mailing list.
There are times when we can alter a normally unusable mailing list to make it work with special database processing. When special database sortation is required it is billed at $60 per hour.
Organizing Your Records
(If separate fields are used, they
will be combined in the above order)
- Name: First name, last name
- Title (Optional):
Professional title ("President",
"Sales Manager", "Marketing
Director", etc,)
- Company (Optional):
Company name
- Department (Optional):
Department name ("Sales", "Customer
Care", etc.)
- Address2 (Optional):
Second line of address (Suite#,
Apt#, etc.)
- Address (Required):
Deliverable address
- City (Required): City
- State (Required): State
- Zip (Required): Zip code
(either 5 digit or 9 digit)
Note: All lists will be processed
and inkjetted using fields listed above.
Additional information (i.e. customer
codes, promotional codes) will only be
inkjetted if explicitly requested.
Address Standardization
Addresses will be automatically
standardized according to USPS CASS
guidelines:
- All information will be
capitalized ("Chad Smith" will
become "CHAD SMITH").
- Punctuation will be removed from
all fields ("MR. CHAD SMITH, JR."
will become "MR CHAD SMITH JR").
- Abbreviations will be
substituted where applicable
("STREET" will be changed to "ST",
"AVENUE" to "AVE", etc.).
Duplicate Removal
Duplicate removal (deduping) is an
automated process that removes
duplicates from a mailing list based on
several criteria. The process is
dependant upon several variables, and
cannot be made 100% accurate. De-duplication (de-duping) will only be completed by request.
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