It is indisputable that building a rich database is of paramount importance. However, it can only yield meaningful results when accompanied by the appropriate list processing tools.

Our focus is on providing multi-channel list processing services to the Catalog and Retail industries. Our services are designed to help our clients successfully market their products in today's complex environment. With postage and paper costs continuing to rise, postal reforms constantly underfoot, and an ongoing need to balance contact strategies across channels, today's marketers face greater challenges than ever before.

Most service bureaus provide adequate list processing, M/P and Postal Qualification services, but SolutionSet goes one step further. Not only does our M/P technology rival any deduping logic available in the marketplace today, we have also implemented contact management capabilities within the M/P process, added data enhancement capabilities, and score records during the merge.

It is our belief that M/P is more than a deduping exercise. It is the only point during a campaign where data elements from multiple sources can efficiently be brought together and made available for use as a targeting tool. As a standard part of our service offering, we provide the capability and insight to help you utilize this targeting tool and can show you how to use it to improve your mail performance.

That's where we can help. Our products and services were developed specifically with today's marketing challenges in mind. We have introduced capabilities that transform traditional list processing services into a strategic asset designed to contribute to your bottom line.

We are committed to the Catalog and Retail verticals and are continually developing services and solutions designed specifically for this marketplace.

Access

I-Deliver is your portal into the SolutionSet data management environment. This web application provides you and your designated partners with secure access to activities and documents related to data management activities performed on your behalf.

the basics

Standardization

All mail files processed at SolutionSet undergo CASS™ address standardization processing from two certified software packages. Both packages validate and correct ZIP® & trade codes, and assign ZIP + 4® codes, CRRTs, Delivery Points, Delivery Point Verification (DPV), LACS, and eLOT™ postal codes. The standardization process also corrects city misspellings and erroneous state abbreviations. The two software packages work independently of each other, thereby giving an added lift to validation and ZIP + 4® assignments. Combined with the value inherent in our list conversion process, standardization ensures that your mailings have the highest possible address quality.

Note: SolutionSet is a non-exclusive Limited Service Provider Licensee of the United States Postal Service®. The following trademarks are owned by the United States Postal Service®: CASS™, ZIP®, ZIP + 4®, eLOT™ and United States Postal Service®.

USPS® Change of Address (COA)

The USPS® has consolidated the functions of two change of address products into the NCOALink® product line. Former change of address products such as NCOA and FASTforward® have been discontinued. SolutionSet is a NCOALink® Limited Service Provider. This allows SolutionSet to apply updated address information to lists based on an 18-month database provided by the USPS®. In addition, for an additional fee SolutionSet can also offer change of address processing against the 48-month USPS® provided database through an NCOALink® Full Service Provider partner relationship. Both data utilize the same matching rule sets and return codes (formerly known as NIXIE codes); the only difference is the data quantity.

Given this information, when should mailers use NCOALink® Limited (18 month) service, and when should they use NCOALink® Full (48 month) service? The answer boils down to price, cycle time, and return on investment. To learn more about how to determine the appropriate mix of these services that meet your particular needs, please contact your SolutionSet representative for a free consultation.

Note: SolutionSet is a non-exclusive Limited Service Provider Licensee of the United States Postal Service®. The following trademarks are owned by the United States Postal Service®: NCOALink®, FASTforward®, United States Postal Service® and USPS®.

merge/purge

In addition to the traditional M/P capabilities, marketers need technology to help support strategic initiatives such as acquisition, retention, cross-selling, and channel optimization.

SolutionSet has developed an application that combines the traditional M/P capabilities, PIN assignment techniques, and prospect database management technologies into a single process. Our offering is more cost effective than the traditional M/P and provides measurable benefits that are nearly impossible to obtain using traditional processing techniques.

Embedded Contact Management

Managing the number of contacts each consumer receives can be an arduous task. It is difficult enough to manage contacts to existing customers, even with the utilization of a marketing database. It is even more difficult to manage contacts to an ever-changing pool of prospects. Some companies have attempted to solve this problem by building expensive prospect database applications and deploying costly CRM systems.

At SolutionSet, we offer a more practical and affordable approach. We have built contact management capabilities into our M/P process. This technique provides marketers with the benefits of the aforementioned prospect database and CRM systems, but at more economical M/P prices.

Enhancement

The essence of the M/P process is to combine disparate data sources and create a single output file with each record representing a single consumer. We view this process as an opportunity to append pertinent data attributes and enhance your view of each consumer.

Data enhancement capabilities are a standard part of our M/P offering. Whether you wish to append demographic and lifestyle information, post model scores from your housefile, or overlay RFM data from another one of the titles you manage, enhancing your mail file will assist you in accurately targeting potential consumers. The result? More profitable mailings.

Scoring

Since our M/P offering includes the ability to generate contact management statistics and provide data enhancement capabilities, it is only logical we combine these variables and use them to build a predictive, customized model. Our unique "Scoring in the merge" capability provides a practical and cost-effective way to make post-merge mailing decisions.

Our database clients enjoy the benefit of a tightly integrated M/P solution. As each M/P is completed, promotion history tables in the database are automatically loaded and made available for analysis. With SolutionSet, circulation history may be analyzed as each campaign unfolds. In addition, when a new-to-file buyer comes on the database, we have the ability to load all of the promotion history responsible for driving the purchase. This capability enables the analysis of various prospect strategies to determine which ones yield the best conversion results.

postage optimization

Combating high postage costs

Increasing postage costs has been a constant theme over the past several years. The May 2007 postal reform is no exception. The difference this time, however, is that in addition to an overall cost increase, the number of postage tiers has also increased. This results in further postage penalties for names that qualify at lower tiers.

SolutionSet has developed services that are designed to help offset these effects and improve the overall ROI from each mail campaign. One such service is called I-Bundle™.

I-Bundle™, our patent-pending postage optimization technology, is saving our clients serious money. I-Bundle™ identifies opportunities to remove less productive names with exceedingly high postage costs from a mail file and add cost-efficient prospects. In many cases, our clients save amounts that are greater than our total annual billing to them.

Dealing with pocket limitations

The number of available bindery pockets is a limitation faced by some mailers. Additional pockets carry significant costs and space requirements and, as a result, there are very few bindery lines that have more than 30 pockets. While many mailers cannot fathom using 30 pockets now, it could become a greater concern as postage increases heighten the need to co-mail with other catalogers.

The availability of large bindery lines may become an issue, especially before the holiday mailing season. This can result in long lead times, pushing out creative and merchandising efforts to earlier dates.

SolutionSet has developed a process, I-Pocket™, specifically designed to reduce bindery costs for mailers who exceed bindery line limitations. I-Pocket™ balances the postage savings gained during co-mail situations with incremental "per pocket" charges associated with demographic binding. The process begins by analyzing each carrier route and determining which pieces need to be co-mailed in order to achieve postage savings. We then place these pieces in a mail string that will be bound on a demographic bindery line. The pieces that do not need to be co-mailed in order to achieve CRRT discounts, or would not receive them even if they were co-mailed, are placed in another mail string destined for a less expensive non-demographic bindery line. The result of running I-Pocket™ is the creation of a set of mail strings that maximizes postage savings and minimizes bindery costs.