Mailing suppression method and system

#The present invention relates generally to list creation methods and systems, and more particularly to mailing list creation methods and systems that have reduced incidence of returned mail.

#Customer mailing lists are constantly being created and updated. These mailing lists are used by mass mailers to solicit the sale of their services or products. Mass mailers, such as credit card companies, often mail tens and hundreds of millions of first class mail solicitations to prospective customers every year. A large percentage of the solicitations cannot be delivered and are returned to the mailers because the solicitee, i.e., a person being solicited or mailed has moved without a forwarding address; the address is incomplete; solicitee stopped their mail for a period of time; or many other reasons. These returned mailings do not result in a sale of services or merchandise and are therefore a wasted expense. To avoid this wasted expense, the mass mailers manually eliminate or suppress those names from future mailings. Unfortunately, this manual suppression of returned mailings has had inconsistent results and returned mailings remain high. Accordingly, there is a strong need in the art for a way to reduce the number of returned mailings.

#In one aspect, a method is provided for use with returned mailings including compiling information from a plurality of returned mailings and making at least one determination with regard to at least one of the returned mailings. The at least one determination may be used to select mailings to be suppressed.

#FIG. 1 illustrates a flowchart for the creation and sorting of records for a records file in one embodiment;

#FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart for the creation of an ARMS data file in one embodiment;

#FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart for the processing of the ARMS data file to filter duplicate records in one embodiment;

#Automatic and efficient suppression of invalid addresses that result in returned mailings are described. In one embodiment, this suppression may be achieved through the tracking of various kinds of information regarding the mailings, such as solicitation information, why the mailing was returned, how many times the mailing has been returned, when the mailing was returned, or other information. This improves the likelihood that suppressed names are suppressed for desired reasons. For example, mailings returned only once have a reasonable probability of being delivered on subsequent attempts and should not be suppressed, whereas mailings returned multiple times should be suppressed. As a result, the number of potential customers who receive the mailings is increased while keeping the number of returned mailings low.

#Embodiments described herein further provide the ability to select one or more suppression or other strategies. This selection may be altered at any time and may be applied retroactively, e.g., if the necessary data was archived. Additionally, generated databases provide information that may be exploited to better evaluate mailing list purchases, mailing strategies, problem identification, and the like. The information may be used to improve existing mailing lists or even create new mailing lists.

#For example, a database having various automatic return mail for solicitations (“ARMS”) data may be used to create files containing returned name and address combinations. These files, referred to as suppression files, may then be used to suppress undeliverable names and addresses from mailing lists. Suppression files may be created, for example, by examining a duplicate counter associated with a mail record in the ARMS database. The duplicate counter would indicate whether that particular mailing was returned more than once. Mail records with duplicate counters set would then be copied to a file, which may be used during the mailing process.