Have you ever purchased a mailing list and noticed two different addresses for contacts? This is particularly common for title companies that give mailing lists to real estate professionals, but other data companies can provide two addresses as well. Do know what the difference between these addresses and when to use which one?
These addresses are the mailing address and the site address. The mailing address is the mailing address for the OWNER of the home. The site address is the address of the home that is owned. In an owner occupied home, the mailing address and site address are the SAME. If a home is rented and has an absentee owner, than the mailing address and site address are DIFFERENT.
Which address should you mail to? That depends on your focus. Businesses focused on targeting residents in a specific geographical area will want to use the site address. Businesses wanting to target people based on other demographic data, or based on previous activity, will want to use the mailing address.
Lets look at an example, shall we?
You are a restaurant owner who wants to let people know about your Taco Tuesday special. Your main goal is to target people who live within 10 miles of your business. You don't care if they own their home or not, you just care that they live within 10 miles. You'll want to mail to the site address. (Side note, if you use EDDM, you are ALWAYS mailing to a site address)
You are an ecommerce shop owner. You've decided to use direct mail to send coupons to those who have visited your website but have not purchased. In this case, you don't care where the person lives, you care that your mail gets to the person who actually visited your site. In that case, you would use the mailing address.
In rare cases, you may want to use both addresses. Many real estate agents want to maximize their exposure in a specific geographical area, and so they will send to the site address in that area, as well as to mailing addresses of people who own homes in their target area. Even if the mailing address is outside the target area, it is still relevant marketing because the recipient owns a home in the target area and may want that real estate agent's services.
Check our our handy infograph below for further explanation. If you have questions about your direct mail list, contact your DOT salesperson or account manager.