Duplicate Removal
Any time two or
more lists are combined or your mailing list contains more
than one entry for the same addressee, for whatever reason,
duplicate removal is essential for saving money and saving
face. Obviously, sending more than one piece to a person
wastes paper, money and time, and may incur a certain amount
of wrath on the part of the recipient.
The Process:
Duplicates are identified on the basis of a combination of name and address
or strictly on address. Our process will weed out duplicate records containing
the exact same name at the same address and we do our best to catch the
duplicates (or "dupes") which pop up as a result of, as examples,
a married couple or alternate versions of a name at the same address. To
improve matching, all lists are updated with ZIP+4 and address hygiene
software before checking for dupes. Some examples:
| Identical
Entries: |
| Bill
Smith |
122
Goodman Blvd |
Chicago
IL 60606-7846 |
| Bill
Smith |
122
Goodman Blvd |
Chicago
IL 60606-7846 |
Same contact, one with a nickname: |
| Bill
Smith |
4611
Les Brown Way |
Seattle
WA 98111-1111 |
| William
Smith |
4611
Les Brown Way |
Seattle
WA 98111-1111 |
| |
| Same
contact, different name sequence, one with nickname: |
| Bill & Melanie
Smith |
3809
Calloway Dr |
Memphis
TN 38112-1235 |
| Melanie & William
Smith |
3809
Calloway Dr |
Memphis
TN 38112-1235 |
One
of the two addresses in each pair above would be marked
for removal.
A second process
called 'soundex', or indexing on the sound of the name instead
of the literal spelling, is also employed, catching many
additional dupes that would otherwise be missed. For example:
| Melanie
Hayes |
1520
Krupa Ave #125 |
Point
Arena CA 95468-6868 |
| Melany
Haze |
1520
Krupa Ave #125 |
Point
Arena CA 95468-6868 |
Address-based
dupe removal is simpler. This is usually employed when you
want a single piece to go to a given household. Our default
is name/address dupe removal, so if you want address-based
removal, please notify us.
The Limitations:
No duplicate removal process
is perfect. To reiterate: No duplicate removal process
is perfect. Some examples
of variations between two otherwise identical duplicate records:
You may have a street address AND a Post Office Box address
for an addressee; we can't find those dupes, since we have
no way to determine whether or not it's the same person.
The
name and/or address in one record may contain misspellings that
software can't match up.
Apartment numbers may be present in
one record and missing in another.
A maiden name in one record
versus a married name in the other may foil our efforts.
A nickname
may be added to or replace the given name in only one of the
records (such as 'Skip', 'Buddy' or 'Hot Pants').
