NCOA -- or National Change of Address -- is a winning software solution to help update your postal datafile. Mandated for all presorted classes of mail, NCOA is an extra data processing step that ensures (1) the address is accurate and (2) the intended recipient still lives at the address and (3) you mail only the most accurate, updated information.

Remember last time you moved that yellow Post Office form you filled out with your old and new address? That form got your mail forwarded to you, and also got your addresses -- both old and new -- into the master address database that the post office maintains. Address changes remain in the system for 48 months.

When Paul&Partners NCOAs your data, we check it against that master database.

There are 49 reasons an address can fail. Some failures are fatal to mail delivery; some are merely inconveniences for the carrier. We'll give you a list of your bad addresses and you can decide whether to delete the records, or to ignore the problem. And yes, you should also fix correctable addresses before you use the data again.

We'll provide you corrected addresses when possible. If someone on your list moves and leaves a forwarding address within the US, we'll provide their new address, and automatically update your data. However, if that same person moves overseas, we can't help you. Sorry.

NCOA will also tell you when people have left no forwarding address (euphemistically, this probably means they are in residence at Happy Acres) and they should be deleted from your data.

NCOA also works for company addresses, up to a point. It can tell if you a company's address is accurate, but it cannot tell you if Mr. Smith is still employed there.

An NCOA is valid for 3 months. You can mail your file as often as you like in that 3-month period, but then you'll need to run your data through NCOA again.

Upsides: It's fast: an NCOA can happen in a couple of hours. It's cheap. It will probably save you more in production and postage than it costs.

Downsides: You've got more paperwork to fill out. Sorry, but it is a requirement, and this is the government, after all. What did you expect? And you've got to do it all over again in 90 days.

Make it easier on yourself -- and your organization's pocketbook. Keep your data clean, eliminate duplicates through merge/purges and prune "deadwood" by NCOA-ing your data. You'll be surprised at how much return rates will improve on your next mailing! You'll look like a genius.