A ZIP+4 code is a four-digit postal code used by the United States Postal Service (USPS) that is appended to a five-digit ZIP Code. Zip+4 codes are made up of a 9-digit code, with the first 5 digits representing the standard ZIP code and the last 4 digits identifying a specific group of addresses or a geographic location.
9 Digit Zip Code For Plainfield Il
The first 5 digits of a 9 Digit ZIP+4 code refer to a specific delivery area, and the additional four digits identify a smaller area within that delivery area. The use of ZIP+4 codes helps the USPS to more efficiently sort and deliver mail to specific addresses.
It was introduced as a solution to make mail travel faster. During its inception, the ZIP codes only consisted of 5 digits but, as the mail system grew bigger and more complex along with the growing population in the US, the 5-digit ZIP codes were no longer doing the job well enough.
In a nine-digit full ZIP Code, the first five digits represent the specific delivery area or post office of an address, whereas the last four digits of the ZIP code indicate the delivery area down to a few blocks radius or specific delivery area.
The ZIP code or Zone Improvement Plan was something the USPS came up with to make the postal service easy and quick across the country. The ZIP codes divide the country into different zones enabling the USPS to accelerate its postal sorting and delivery process effectively. Therefore, it is always best to provide the full 9-digits ZIP code if you want the letter or package delivered sooner rather than later.
The question now becomes how do I find the full ZIP code to the address I want to send a direct mail to? When it comes to businesses that send out regular direct mails to their customers, this question is even more crucial because they often work on deadlines. When working on a deadline, speed is vital, and the post reaches the customers even more urgently.
Hence, businesses must turn to advanced address verification tools like PostGrid that can provide a complete address, including the full 9-digit ZIP codes for your address database. What makes it even better is that you are able to do this in a matter of seconds, and it only takes you a few clicks.
When it was first launched, the five-digit ZIP code was a revolutionary step for the US postal service. It significantly simplified the way the USPS functioned and streamlined its operations. The ZIP 4 code was brought in later to accommodate the growing population.
But perhaps what can be considered the most significant benefit of the ZIP 4 code, especially for businesses, is that the ZIP+4 codes require address validation. In other words, in order to get the ZIP+4 code of an address, it must first be standardized and validated to exist.
The 9-digits full ZIP code works in parts. For example, consider a direct mail is sent to New York City from Dallas, the carrier that first receives your mail from Dallas need not know the exact delivery address of the recipient. The mail first needs to be forwarded to the appropriate mail carrier, which in this case is the state of New York.
Now, here is where the ZIP code comes into the picture for the first time during the travel of your direct mail. As mentioned before, the ZIP codes are assigned to post offices all around the country by USPS, and each post office has at least one ZIP code assigned to it. In case the post office handles postal services to more than one ZIP code, it will have more ZIP codes assigned to it.
The first five digits are used at this stage to ensure that the direct mail is sent to the correct post office. At this stage, there is no point bothering with the ZIP 4 code at this point. Once the direct mail reaches the destined post office, the first 5-digit of the ZIP code becomes practically irrelevant other than cross-checking the address. Once the direct mail is received at the relevant post office, the ZIP 4 codes can then be used to figure out where the mail is delivered. The ZIP 4 code allows assigning the right person for the delivery based on their delivery route, thereby streamlining the entire delivery process.
Now that we have an overview of the two parts of the 9-digits ZIP, we can now discuss how exactly the ZIP code helps identify your most accurate location. The best place to start this is the USPS five-digit ZIP codes that we are all familiar with.
The first digit of your five-digit ZIP code signifies the national area, while the next two digits signify the sectional center or large city post office. The last two digits of the five-digit ZIP code give the associate post office or delivery area, thereby giving the people at USPS a comprehensive idea of the postage destination.
These are unique codes and serve a specific purpose of being individualistic from the standard ones to avoid any form of confusion. It is also possible for businesses and organizations to get their own ZIP code due to the high volume of mail they receive every day. This is very practical for both the business and USPS. The business usually has an internal mail department that can presort mail before distributing it inside the company.
Since the ZIP+4 code digits are based on delivery routes rather than permanent boundaries, the last four digits of ZIP codes can often be subjected to change. Although the five-digit ZIP code also changes from time to time, their changes are far less frequent as compared to the ZIP+4 codes. In fact, it is unlikely that the five-digit ZIP code of a place will change while you are still living there as they remain the same for most of the time.
On the other hand, the ZIP 4 code can change much more frequently and may sometimes change once a month based on a number of factors. These factors include the number of postal employees working, the route taken by the delivery truck, etc.
Businesses who want to optimize their direct mails, whether it be for a campaign or for sending out important documents like bills, need to include a full ZIP code on the posts they send. The full ZIP code of a mailing address ensures that your post reaches its destination fast and efficiently.
The full mailing ZIP code of an address also offers much higher deliverability because these addresses are standardized and validated to be real. Therefore, the more accurate and efficient your address verification system, the better your direct mailing process will be for your business.
The best way for you to carry out a full zip code lookup for business purposes would be to use advanced address verification tools such as PostGrid. With an API, like PostGrid, you can easily upload your address database, small or big, as a CSV file and you can easily get the verified version of your address database.
The shipping quality of the offline communication methods is greatly improved when you carry out a full ZIP code lookup and use the ZIP+4 code, and it ensures the offline communications are delivered in a single drop-off. Another advantage of a ZIP+4 code lookup is that the addresses are subjected to a standardization process.
The USPS encourages using ZIP+4 codes for bulk mailings by offering discounts because the ZIP+4 codes give USPS valuable information that will help them sort through their mail items more efficiently. As a result, the USPS only has to spend minimal resources to mail pieces to their destination.
Another aspect of your offline communication affected by the utilization of full ZIP code lookup is the speed. Throughout this article, we have mentioned many times how the full nine-digit ZIP code enhances the speed of operation and speed of delivery of the post.
The ZIP+4 code enables the USPS to direct mail much faster, which is ideal for businesses that want to send out important documents such as invoices, bills, or bank statements. The documents reach their destination in the shortest possible time and minimize the risk of late delivery, which effectively improves your customer service quality.
Although the full ZIP code lookup tools significantly enrich the customer data and are invaluable in terms of efficiency, there is a risk of it integrating poorly with an automated mail printing and delivery system. Unless the solution of your choice is fully automated, like PostGrid, which allows you to carry out a full ZIP code lookup and have them printed and mailed to the right destinations, you may end up hiring a separate team to handle the offline communications.
Using an advanced bulk address verification tool like PostGrid for a full ZIP code lookup allows you to get a more comprehensive and data-driven idea about the geographic area your target audience lives in. You can use this to collect additional demographic data about the target audience.
In effect, a full ZIP code lookup can lead to enhancing the marketing campaigns and their overall quality despite which marketing channel you decide to use. Furthermore, the accuracy of your cross-channel marketing is greatly improved through a full ZIP code lookup.
The full ZIP code lookup offered by the USPS is not equipped with the advanced capabilities that are needed for the marketing automation of medium to large size companies. The USPS services offered for a full ZIP code lookup are pretty rudimentary and with limited data enrichment capabilities.
For a business, it is highly impractical to use legacy solutions provided by USPS for determining the extended ZIP code of addresses in your database. As a result, your cross-channel marketing campaign may suffer.
Traditional solutions like USPS extended ZIP code lookup are not the right match for businesses regardless of size. It is, therefore, necessary for businesses to adopt a more simplified, accurate, and well-organized solution. 2ff7e9595c
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