“If It’s the Best Addressed It’s Ahead of the Rest.” This catchy phrase appears in several educational publications from the U.S. Postal Service. Your mail may be delivered even if you don’t adhere to the USPS standards for address formats. But by following some simple guidelines, you can ensure that your mail will be scanned and coded for delivery on the first pass through USPS’s automated equipment, which means that it will be delivered as quickly as possible. This will also lessen the chance of the post office returning your first-class mail as undeliverable, or bumping your standard mail to higher postage rates.

A similar situation applies if you are shipping UPS or FedEx. For every address that has to be corrected by UPS or FedEx, you will be charged an address correction fee of between $5 and $10!

For an exhaustively complete reference on the proper formatting of mailing addresses, refer to USPS Publication 28, “Postal Addressing Standards.” Pub 28 contains instructions for formatting, punctuating and abbreviating all kinds of addresses. It’s 208 pages long, but we’ve pulled out some of the most important tips below.

• Capitalization and Punctuation. USPS prefers that the address be in all uppercase letters. Omit punctuation, except for the hyphen between the zip code and the zip + 4.

• Abbreviations. Always use USPS standard abbreviations for street designators (Road = RD), secondary address designators (Suite = STE), states (Florida = FL), directionals (North = N), and other commonly used address words such as Building (BLDG). USPS Publication 28 lists the standard abbreviations for each category, including Spanish language abbreviations.

• Suite or Apartment Numbers. The preferred position for these secondary address designators is at the end of the street address line. For example:
  DATAWORKS
  272 BRODHEAD RD STE 100
  BETHLEHEM PA 18017-8937

  It is permitted to list the suite or apartment number on the line above the street address, in the case where the street address line would otherwise be unduly long, as in:
  ABC COMPANY
  STE 120
  1200 ALLEGHENY CENTER PKWY
  HARRISBURG PA 17102-0120

• Dual addresses. It is best to avoid using dual addresses. Use either the street address or the PO box, not both. If a dual address is used, be aware that USPS reads the address from the bottom up. So always put the address that belongs to the zip code on the line directly above the zip code. For example:
  DATAWORKS
  272 BRODHEAD RD
  PO BOX 20126
  LEHIGH VALLEY PA 18002-0216

  In this example, the street address and the PO box address are each located in different zip codes. If the street address were to be placed on the third line, the address would be incorrect and the mail would be returned to the sender (if sent first-class) or thrown away (if sent standard mail).

There are many, many other examples and instructions in USPS Publication 28, including some funky ones such as how to list County Road North East, North South Oak Street, and Southeast Freeway North. It gives one renewed respect for our mail carriers! To access Pub 28, click here.

The examples in this article barely scratch the surface. of the larger concept of mailing list hygiene. At DataWorks, we adhere to the USPS address standards in the databases that we maintain for customers. If you are maintaining your own database or mailing list in-house, here are a few resources that may help:

• DataWorks International, Inc. and other mailing service providers can update your mailing list with corrected and standardized addresses. If this service is performed in the course of a mailing, ask that the updated list be returned to you so that you can incorporate the changes into your database. Contact DataWorks for more information.

• Melissa Data sells tools which can be used in real-time or batch mode to improve address quality.

• UPS and Fedex offer address correction services through their automated shipper systems. Ask your company’s UPS or FedEx representative to help you set this up.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you want to discuss your mailing list and ways to use it or improve it.

Tags: Address Hygiene, Address Standardization, Lehigh Valley, Mailing List Management