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.

Good : All address information in different cells in the same row.

Bad : Address information separated into multiple rows.

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 (de-duping) 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.