You don’t know us, but we know you. We’ve heard your questions, your suggestions; we’ve even solicited your input on occasion. Behind every great application at Compact is a team of hard-working developers dedicated to improving your experience every day.

Our job, despite the image of a group of developers sitting in a dark room bathing in the deep blue light of our monitors while drinking caffeine like it was going out of style, is actually a lot of fun. Akin to a child being placed in a room full of Lego, you can see the gleam of excitement in the eye of each developer as we innovate new methods of accomplishing the oft-difficult tasks placed before us, create better ways for you to accomplish your tasks, and improve the experience while doing it. We engineer solutions everyday to common and not-so-common problems, all while being invisible to you, the end-users.

If you’ve made it this far then congratulations, you win the answer to why I’m going on about this. Being invisible is difficult. We work through a wall of water, soliciting information from our customers via our account executives, making the improvements, fixing the (sometimes embarrassing) problems, and improving your ability to get what you need, accurately, immediately, and most importantly: how you want it. Being invisible is fun, but sometimes, the curtain must be lifted, and the show must begin. As Compact continues expanding and enhancing our product offerings, you will catch a glimpse of us working, providing what we work to ensure is a positive experience.

We have a lot more in store, and each time the shroud over our workshop is removed, a new or updated offering will be revealed, better than the last, and exactly what you didn’t know you were looking for.

Eric Baum
Team Leader
Compact Application Development

Here at Compact we spend a lot of time helping customers track and research individual address information. One of the most common questions we hear is “Why didn’t this address show up on my list?”

One of the main challenges in answering this question can be the fact the USPS.COM web site (which many of us rely on for address lookup help) may show the address in question as being valid when in fact it is not currently being posted to the USPS CDS (Computerized Delivery Sequencing) database. Basically, the USPS site is confirming the validity, not the deliverability of the address!

Here is a sampling of the different reasons an address may not appear on our Resident file:
-The address is currently unoccupied (vacant)
-The address is new construction and hasn’t been added to CDS yet
-The address is on our permanent suppression file
-The address is temporarily undeliverable (e.g. storm/flood damaged areas)
-The address is permanently undeliverable (e.g. condemned, shut down)
-The address does not receive mail service (e.g. many businesses, retail locations)
-The address is a “throwback” (resident receives mail at a PO Box)
-The address is in an exclusive gated community that refuses bulk mail delivery

In short, there are many different scenarios that affect the deliverability of an address and whether it will appear on your mailing list. We’re happy to help investigate your particular address dilemma – Just let us know what help you need!

Mary McCarty
List Services Manager

Score a TKO with our unique Apartment File.

Don’t you just love good, clean competition? At Compact, we’re creating products for you to be able to set yourselves apart from the other guys. Don’t go into the ring alone- take us with you!

Our latest database is our Apartment file. Oh… I know- you could just select MFDU’s in a Carrier Route and go from there. But what if you had customers that wanted to market to a specific complex? What if you worked with a bank that wants renters that pay $1000.00 a month for rent, to try to help them get a mortgage? How about those satellite TV and cable companies….Rent to own furniture companies… Self Storage units…. other apartment complexes in the neighborhood?

There are over 200,000 complexes representing 12,000,000 + apartment dwellers on our file. This files focus is on complexes with over 16 units. Rent ranges, pet approved, management companies, and names where available are all additional selects to further refine and enhance your list selections.

All of the complexes on our Apartment file have been specifically mapped at the street level to include the entire complex. Every address is deliverable because the Post Office provides all of the secondary information. We can even add names where available (like on our OccuName file).

To get counts- you simply need to send us the complex name and the zip code it is in. You could ask for renters that pay over 800.00 in zip 76006.

So step into the ring with Compact in your corner- we’re here to coach you thru the tough fights and help you come out a winner!

Go for the Knockout!!

Chris Slauter

I’ve been a sales guy, marketer and executive for the past 20+ years. I’ve worked in mainframe and mini applications, hardware, a huge wireless startup, several investor-backed Internet startups and a couple of multi-national corporations. I’ve run a commercial printing company and now a major national marketing database provider. I’ve worked in England, Australia and the United States and I have friends all over the place in interesting places doing interesting things. Why am I saying all of this?

Quite simply, because even though I’ve got all of this varied experience, I’m still struggling to understand how the Social Media world is functioning, what its impact will be over time, and exactly what I should be doing about it.

It’s pretty intuitive to me that direct mail has shrunk quite a bit, along with printing and the paper industry, but it isn’t going to go away any time soon. Part of that shrinkage is the economy; regardless of how great we’re told the economy is doing, it remains to be seen whether the direct mail industry will stabilize and perhaps rebound in the foreseeable future. If anything, from what I can glean from peers within the industry, results are flat year over year.

So if results in our core business are flat and the big buzz is now Social Media, then what can be done to fully understand where this new paradigm is going to lead us? How can we leverage the tools of this digital frontier to become part of this shift, instead of being a pedestrian or road kill on the Social Media Digital Highway!?

Well one thing I’ve been doing is spending some quality time each week researching the emerging online companies who are laying the asphalt on that new virtual highway. I’ve looked at Stickybits.com, foursquare, SimpleGeo, Survey Monkey, Mail Chimp, SalesForce, HubSpot, iContact, slideshare, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Jigsaw and all of the Google tools (AdWords, Alerts, Analytics, etc).

Slowly the fog of confusion is being raised, and I’m starting to get a clearer picture. But as I stand in the crossroads of that virtual highway I’m still not sure if what I can see through the mist is an oncoming truck ready to turn me in to Virtual Road Kill, or an epiphany that will enable me to fully integrate all of these amazing new tools and create a total solution for all my sales and marketing needs that will track, score, analyze, report and integrate everything in to some kind of perpetual motion marketing machine where all you have to do is pour in marketing dollars at one end, and revenue flows out the other end.

In the meantime I’ll continue to work closely with our valued customers to satisfy their every list and data need, so that the mail continues to flow and the USPS keeps the show on the real road!

Cheers Rich
CEO
Compact

Recently we had a client of one of our customers call wanting to claim the $1,000 prize they had just won on our Residentlist.com mapping website. You can imagine my dismay when I heard this, since we have specific places on our site that we reserve for advertising purposes and our Residentlist.com mapping site is not one of them. So I went to the site to check out what they were referring too, and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Then I had the customer send me a screenshot of what they were seeing (see below).

On first sight this looked perfectly legitimate, but in fact the “advertisement” was illicitly placed on top of the mapping tool in our site by some deviant code written by an unethical source. We call this Banner Spam.

Further digging revealed the following.

We found the company responsible for this hijacking was a rather unscrupulous spam marketer. This company is known for getting people to unwittingly signup for promotional ads from many unsavory characters on the internet.

So, how do you save yourself from becoming a victim of banner spam? The answers are simpler than you think. Below I’ve outlined several steps you can take to protect yourself from ad attacks like this one. By no means are these meant to encompass all the possible ways to secure your computers, but it will give you a general starting point.

1. Always keep your browser up-to-date with the latest manufacturer approved and prompted updates.

2. Run an industry recognized Anti-Virus software that has built in anti-phishing and cross-browser script protection. Remember, these products are only good when they are kept up-to-date against the latest threats.

3. Be careful when responding to any email asking you to signup for some sort of third-party ads, especially when they don’t specify who those third-parties might be.

4. Pay close attention when installing software that prompts you to install shortcuts in your browser. These tools are usually referred to as Browser Helper Objects or (BHO’s) and they add toolbars to your browser to assist you in performing tasks associated with software from specific companies. They can also be employed by hackers to put unwanted items on browser pages that fool unsuspecting users into downloading their hacking tools onto their computers.

5. Lastly, my standard rule of thumb is, “When in doubt, DON’T”. I mean don’t click, answer or respond to any ads or emails you are not 100% sure of their origins.

I don’t need to tell you that hackers and unscrupulous advertisers abound on the Internet and we must be vigilant when it comes to securing our systems from fraud. You can rest assured that we here at Compact are doing everything to keep you safe when using our compactlists.com.

Randy Kienzle
VP Tech

With the ever changing array of application platforms available for the internet, it is nice to have an in-house staff that is able to adapt to these changes. Compact has always taken pride in being a leader in the technology arena by bring our customers powerful web-based applications for resident, consumer and business list ordering.

One of the greatest tools available to our customers is our mapping technology. Through the years Compact has been hard at work bringing advances to our mapping technology such as county, zip and carrier route polygons, and advanced radii functions which allow customers to better visualize their mailing areas and better target the best clients to advance the growth of their businesses. In addition to programming websites and applications, we have a team of data experts that continuously monitor our databases to ensure we have the most accurate and targeted resident, consumer and business lists on the market today.

It you haven’t connected with Compact Information Systems head over to www.CompactLists.com today. You will find the experience second to none and our data is the best in the business.

Randy Kienzle

Sooner than we realize, it will be that time again. Spring really is right around the corner, next thing you know summer will be here! At this time of year we frequently get asked about “seasonal addresses”. What exactly are they and how do they affect your Residential mailing list?

The simplest way to think about seasonal addresses is as “non-permanent”. There are approximately 900,000 addresses coded as “seasonal” by the USPS. Rather than widespread and spotty, these addresses are pockets of the country where in general the population increases significantly – but not permanently – on a seasonal basis… typically the winter or summer months.

No matter the time of year or geographic location, seasonals are addresses where the resident does not permanently reside. Most of us are familiar with the “snowbirds” who winter down in the sunny southern parts of the country like Florida, however seasonals crop up in many parts of the country at different times of the year, such as summer vacationers in Nantucket, winter skiers in Aspen and so on.

The challenge in working with seasonal addresses usually comes down to timing. For these traveling households the permanent address is never coded as seasonal and the corresponding seasonal address is never coded as vacant. That is why for affected areas it is critical to consider the impact including seasonal addresses may have on your mailing list deliverability. For instance, a mailing to apartments on the Jersey Shore in the middle of winter could greatly increase the amount of undeliverables if seasonal addresses are not excluded! Mailers really need to remember that “seasonals” are an address type that will not be coded as “vacant” when not occupied.

Compact’s Resident List site allows you to review seasonal counts and include or exclude seasonal addresses in any list order. For zips that include seasonal addresses we also provide you with the months they are typically occupied as well – in short, our online tools allow you to make the most informed decision possible regarding these addresses. For further discussion on “seasonals” and the impact they might have on your mailing, give us a call!

Mary McCarty
List Services Manager

Starting Over. It’s more than a TV show or a John Lennon song. No one likes to begin something again- but we’ve found that starting over can be a beneficial thing for your customers. I’m talking to all of you who run radii for your clients- Especially those of you that copy and paste or upload the old geo-codes into the new count. You may find over time that you are missing addresses and have big holes in your mailing areas.

In the infinite wisdom of the USPS – they make route changes and send those out to the CDS holders weekly. They will add a few addresses to this route- take a few from that one, and re-configure route boundaries in an effort to become more efficient at delivering our mail.

The result of all of this USPS activity is that Compact’s weekly change file for the country is around 40-50 million addresses. If one address in the route changes- then the entire route has to be updated. You will find all of these changes listed by ZIP Code and route on the Compact Resident List site under Route Query. The date of the change is also listed. This is the same place you go when your client calls and says- “I had 358 people in CR003- where did they go?”

When you run a radius- it will incorporate all of the routes within the given Geo.

When you copy and paste old Geography into a fresh count- you may begin receiving 0 counts in some of your routes due to the movement of addresses or the deletion of a Route in its entirety. A zero should be an indicator that some kind of change has taken place. Depending on the size of the radius in question you could be missing significant market areas.

It’s really easy to re-run your radii – the starting address is still in the original count. So, instead of starting a new count and then copying and pasting – (clone the old order if you have to have the old original count) all you have to do is click a tab on the pop up window.

The job you are wanting to update (T000857004) is a radius job. Do you want to:
( ) Keep the existing geography
(X) Re-run the radius (any routes added manually will be lost)

By clicking the re-run the radius button you will automatically get the new Geo.

Should you and your customer email Geo files back and forth- it’s a good practice to run radii from their origination point quarterly and create new Geo files.

So rather than thinking starting over is a bad thing- keep your customers happy and sales on track- and re-run your radii!

Chris Slauter
Compact Information Systems

Here in Seattle the local City Council is pushing for support of a Do Not Mail list that they hope will become a nationwide initiative. Apparently the effort is being sponsored by the ForestEthics in an attempt to stop deforestation as a result of direct mail.

You can follow the storyline at the Huffington Post.

In response to Mr. Paglia’s assertions I sent the following comments to his article. The unintended consequences of such an initiative could be dramatic, it is incumbent upon all of us in the Direct Marketing Industry to do our part in trying to help educate everyone in how we perform our business and the value it has to the economy, as well as the real impact on the environment. I have been a green advocate for quite some time, I care deeply about this planet, the future of my children, the air that we breathe and the water that we drink – I also love hiking in the woods and would aggressively advocate for the protection of all old growth. But my environmental position is balanced with a realism and a pragmatism that serves to keep me focused on all aspects of the debate, not just the ones that serve my own personal viewpoint.

Anyway, here’s my short blog back to Todd, and his co-worker at Forest Ethics, Marika.

Todd/Marika.

Some points I’d like you to consider:

· Direct Mail drives the cost of all postage down. The industry is incredibly efficient, and helps enable the USPS to subsidize postage for citizens, not the other way around

· Direct Mail is so efficient because the USPS requires the industry to provide mail pieces in “walk sequence” – literally in the very sequence the postal carrier will use when she drives or walks the mail route

· Many local small businesses use Direct Mail to attract customers within their neighborhood to their store. A pizza parlor will mail every neighbor within 2 miles with a coupon for a pepperoni pizza. Take away Direct Mail from this local store owner and you will hand that pizza order to the multi-national chain who can afford TV advertising

· Should your initiative be successful and across the US the Direct Mail industry is dealt a mortal blow, what do you intend to happen to the people directly affected by the collapse of this industry? It is estimated to be approximately 40,000 people in Washington alone?

Finally, there are over 3 billion Christmas cards sent by citizens around Christmas. These are printed on board stock and mailed, typically inside envelopes that have hand written addresses. The USPS does an incredible job of delivering those Holiday wishes of our citizenry – - but the environmental impact cannot be ignored. Do you intend to sponsor a bill to eradicate the Christmas card too?

Rich Lancaster

CEO

Compact Information Systems

Our world goes by so quickly and our brains are bombarded with images at a phenomenal rate. The human brain can absorb something to the tune of 7200 images and 600 words a minute according to Randy J. Harvey PhD. Every web site you open has some kind of blinking message or scrolling banner, our billboards have gone LCD and don’t even get me started about cell phones and texting. Mail volume is picking up too, which is great news for all of us.

Making your message stand out has always been a priority with Compact. We’re experts at listening to you- then working with you to find the best audience for your message. Not only getting your message out- but getting it to the right audience with the most deliverable addresses- PERIOD! It doesn’t matter how great your graphics are- how good your offer is- if it doesn’t get delivered- you and your customer are wasting money.

Recently we had a customer ask why we didn’t have several ZIP codes on a database they wanted to mail. Other compilers showed this to be a valid ZIP code and it even showed up on USPS.com. Compact is not a company that leaves well enough alone- we delved deeper and made a few calls. (Our tech group is absolutely amazing!). The ZIP codes in question were coded as Vacant and another is not currently active within the Address Management System. That means that our clients client had been mailing invalid addresses and wasting hundreds of dollars in postage and printing every month.

Get your message to the right place- the first time. Direct Mail works and Compact works for you.

Chris Slauter
Compact Information Systems