RNVP: The key to successful marketing activation through reliable data

In the age of Data Marketing, the quality of your customer database becomes paramount. When deploying your direct mail marketing campaigns, each incorrect, incomplete, or outdated postal address represents not only a cost (wasted mail, return to sender) but also a missed opportunity for communication and conversion.

In addition to the ability to send a print campaign, a postal address today represents a real opportunity to gain detailed knowledge of your customers thanks to open data. Thus, it is high-value information such as socio-professional category, family composition, or income that you will be able to retrieve to enrich your customer knowledge.

Faced with these challenges, the Restructuring and Normalisation of Postal Databases (RNVP) emerges as an indispensable solution. Far from being a mere technical task, RNVP is a strategic lever that ensures the reliability of your data and optimises the efficiency of your marketing campaigns, thereby guaranteeing that your messages reach the right person, at the right place, and at the right time. Discover how RNVP can transform your postal data management and boost your marketing performance.

What exactly is RNVP?

RNVP stands for Restructuring, Normalisation, Postal Validation. To put it simply, it's a set of processes aimed at:

1. Restructure an address: Put all addresses into a single, consistent format, regardless of how they were entered (e.g. «Av. Foch» will become «Avenue Foch»).
2. Normalise an address: Correct typos, abbreviations, and standardise street names (e.g. «St Jean Street»).
3. Validate an address: Check that the address genuinely exists and is correctly spelled according to the official La Poste (French Post Office) database (RNVP being a French standard, based on the National Postal Address Database).

In short, RNVP transforms potentially chaotic addresses into addresses clean, complete and validated.

 

Pourquoi la qualité des adresses est-elle si essentielle ?

A wrong address is much more than a simple typing error. It is:

• Wasted marketing budget: Every undelivered letter, every returned parcel, is money down the drain.
• A bad customer experience: A customer who doesn't receive their information or orders is a frustrated and potentially lost customer.
• Inaccurate Data: If your addresses are wrong, all your location-based customer knowledge can be skewed. It's difficult to segment effectively or personalise your offers if you don't know where your customers actually are!
• An impact on your brand image: A company that sends information to the wrong address or fails to deliver, projects an unprofessional image.
• A loss of consciousness: the postal address, with open data, represents valuable information today for your customer knowledge and also for the geographical targeting of your OOH / DOOH campaigns.

RNVP is therefore the guarantee of fluid and effective customer communication, whether physical or even digital (as clean postal data also aids in better geographical segmentation of your databases).

 

Comment fonctionne la Révision Nationale des Voies Publiques (RNVP) ?

From your existing database, the RNVP treatment is carried out in 5 successive stages:

Stage 1: Analysis and diagnosis of your database:

• Before any treatment, an initial analysis is carried out to assess the general state of the database or file. This includes checking for the presence of necessary fields (surname, first name, house number, street name, postcode, town, etc.).
• A diagnosis allows for an assessment of the quality of existing data, identification of major inconsistencies, empty or poorly completed fields, and identification of potential sources of error (typos, non-standard abbreviations, etc.).
• This step may also include a measurement of the fill rate and consistency of the fields.

Step 2: Address Restructuring:

• This phase aims to reorganise and standardise the presentation of address elements. The information (number, street type, street name, address additional info, postcode, locality) is extracted from its often poorly structured original fields and repositioned into the appropriate fields according to a logical and standardised order.
• The objective is to ensure that each component of the address is in the correct logical «line,» even if the input file is messy. For example, the building number should be on the line dedicated to the number and street name, the recipient's name on the identity line, and so on.

Step 3: Address Normalisation:

• Once restructured, addresses are formatted to comply with official postal standards, notably the AFNOR NF Z 10-011 standard in France.
  • This involves several operations: Standardisation of abbreviations: Replacement of non-compliant abbreviations
    (e.g. «Av&» to «Avenue», «Boul» to «Boulevard»).
  • Case standardisation: Applying upper/lower case rules (often, the last three lines of the address should be in upper case).
  • Removal of extraneous characters: Elimination of unnecessary punctuation, special characters, or superfluous spaces.
  • Line length limitation: Each line of the address must not exceed a certain number of characters (generally 38, including spaces).
  • De-accenting: For systems that require it, accents can be removed.

Step 4: Postal Verification:

• This is the crucial step for checking the accuracy of addresses. Normalised addresses are compared against official postal databases that are kept up to date by La Poste, such as:
  • Hexaposte: Contains all postcodes, communes and hamlets.
  • Hexavia: Reference database for streets (roads, avenues, etc.) with their numbers.
  • Hexaclé: Allows the coding of addresses and contains the existing street number ranges for a given street.
• This comparison allows us to:
  • Validate the existence of the address (street, number, postcode, locality).
  • Correct spelling errors (street name, town), incorrect postcodes.
  • Identifying NPAI (Not Living at the Indicated Address) or PND (Undeliverable Mail) addresses, meaning invalid or obsolete addresses.
  • Enrich the address with additional information if necessary (e.g., INSEE code of the commune).

Step 5: File return and processing reports:

• After processing, the file is returned with the corrected and normalised addresses.
• Each address is usually accompanied by a return code (or quality indicator) that specifies the level of validation and reliability of the address (e.g., fully validated address, corrected address, uncorrectable address/NPAI). These codes are essential for segmenting the file and deciding on the marketing actions to undertake.
• A detailed report summarises the operations carried out, the number of addresses corrected and validated, and the NPAI rate, making it possible to measure the effectiveness of the processing.

Setting up RNVP: the advantages of a Customer Data Platform (CDP)

RNVP can be performed in different ways. Traditionally, specialised providers offer these database cleaning services, either on an ad hoc basis or via regular streams.
However, with the evolution of customer data management solutions, RNVP is directly integrated into the heart of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) like Smartprofile.

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a platform that collects, unifies, and centralises all your customer data from all your sources (website, e-commerce, CRM, physical stores, etc.). Its objective is to create a single, 360° view of each customer. And this is precisely where RNVP finds its full power:

• Data unification: Before unifying the profiles of the same customer (for example, «John Smith» who entered his address in two different ways), the CDP uses RNVP to ensure that the address is identical and validated. This is an essential prerequisite for reliable customer identification.
• Data quality at source: By integrating RNVP from the moment of data ingestion, the CDP ensures that all addresses entering your system are directly corrected and validated. No more propagating errors!
• More relevant marketing: With reliable addresses, you can create precise geographic segments, send localised offers, or even optimise your flyer distribution campaigns. Your actions are more targeted and therefore more effective.
• Enhanced customer experience: By ensuring your physical communications reach their destination and that your customer data is accurate, you build customer trust and satisfaction.

In conclusion: RNVP, an investment to optimise your campaign performance.

RNVP is not just a simple technical task of «cleaning». It is a strategic investment in the quality of your customer capital. By placing it at the heart of your Data Marketing approach, particularly via a Customer Data Platform solution made in France like Smartprofile which offers this type of processing, you ensure you have a reliable database, optimize your costs, improve your customer relationships, and ultimately, boost your marketing performance.

To find out what the Customer Data Platform can do for you, consult our page here :