This is the second part of our deep dive into ZIP+4 Codes for Salesforce. If you’re not sure what ZIP+4 Codes are and why you should care, here’s where you can read the first blog post.
A recap in 3 sentences
Want to get up to speed quicker than that? Here’s the 3-sentence version.
ZIP+4 Codes were created by the USPS to provide even more precise address matching to a more granular level, since they represent only a handful of houses or even a single building.
So, ZIP+4 Codes are incredibly useful because they help the USPS more effectively sort and distribute mail.
For you and your business, this means faster deliveries, reduced misdeliveries, granularity even down to a specific PO box, and all of this translates to saving money and time!
Salesforce CRM and ZIP+4 Codes
Salesforce as an organisation is quick to highlight the importance of ZIP Code data:
“Without geographic data to structure and enhance existing CRM data, and no market data to track against current market share, it’s impossible to effectively manage sales territories for growth.”
What does bad geographical data look like in practice?
- Allocating sales resource to geographic areas with little potential
- Spending time marketing to places where ROI is unlikely
- Struggling to report on market share across regions, leaving your organisation without a clear forward-looking strategy
All of this boils down to an alarming amount of time and money wasted.
You’re probably thinking that we’ve spent enough time preaching about the perils of inaccurate or missing ZIP Code data for your organisation. So, let’s take it one step further; let’s look at why you need Zip+4 Codes for your Salesforce CRM.
We’re going to use Salesforce CRM as our case study here, but you can easily swap out Salesforce for your CRM of choice. The information remains completely relevant.
Why you need ZIP+4 Codes for your Salesforce CRM
1. Give yourself the competitive advantage
“Poor quality data costs businesses around $700 billion a year, or 30 percent of the average company’s revenue” according to Salesforce.
If you’re working in a competitive industry (and aren’t we all these days?), have you considered how cleaner, more precise datapoints like ZIP+4 can give you an advantage over your competitors?
As we work through the points below, we’ll see how more granular data sets you up for a better understanding of your market, clearer reporting and business analysis, and greater opportunity to succeed in your niche.
💡 Bear in mind that here we’re discussing the ‘big picture’ wins. We’re not even going to cover how a cleaner, more accurate CRM database empowers your users to to do their daily tasks more efficiently, increases CRM adoption and allows for faster, simple business processes – all things that can give your business the advantage over your competitors.
2. Many integrations require a ZIP+4 Code
It’s worth considering that, along with the list of benefits we’ll be investigating, for many integrations and delivery services that you use alongside Salesforce CRM, ZIP+4 Codes are not just recommended but required. So why not make your integrations smoother by retrieving ZIP+4 Codes within your CRM?
3. Combine ZIP+4 Codes with market data
We’re completely aware that a ZIP+4 Code alone is not going to provide you with useful market insight. However, when you think about that ZIP+4 Code as the data backbone of your market analysis and white space strategy, you begin to see its potential. Let’s imagine the power of having every CRM record associated with a specific ZIP+4 Code.
Taking a B2B example, imagine displaying the number of companies within a region by NAICS industry code*, connecting this data with a ZIP+4 Code directly on a record in your CRM. As a B2C example, imagine combining a dataset related to age, income and spending habits with the granularity of a ZIP+4 Code to have the most accurate consumer targeting available.
Hopefully you can see that by combining a ZIP+4 Code with market data, you’re creating micro-markets that are giving you the best available information about your white space for growth. A more exact idea of the number of businesses in a ZIP+4 area, a truer picture of the demographic breakdown of an even smaller region… Sales territories, targeted marketing and allocation of resource just got more intentional.
*We’ve got a Salesforce-native tool for looking up industry codes! Check out IndustryComplete.
4. Dig deeper into your analytics
We’ve seen how ZIP+4 Codes can underpin other market datapoints for detailed planning and allocation of resource in your market. Now let’s look at how ZIP+4 Codes can improve your analytics and reporting.
With a ZIP+4 Code associated with each Salesforce record, whether it’s an account, lead, opportunity or something else, you can track sales performance and identify with even more geo-specificity your areas of success. With that information, you know more definitively where to focus your time, resource and efforts to maximise your success.
💡 Once you take into account the possibility that two cities may share the same five-digit ZIP Code, you can see how ZIP+4 Codes empower you to drill down more than your competitors to identify your high yield regions.
5. Succeed in your industry niche
It’s always helpful when talking about niches to avoid generalisations. So, let’s dive straight into a case study for this one.
We have a client who supplies parts in the aerospace industry. They need to ship parts to aircraft hangars that are often situated in the middle of nowhere. Providing a ZIP+4 Code for these airport hangars is the best possible way they can ensure their parts will reach their destinations quickly and efficiently.
Whether you work in a niche aerospace sector or something completely different, getting ZIP+4 data into your Salesforce CRM means you’re setting yourself up with the best possible data for success in your (extremely specific!) business processes.
6. Avoid paying excess tax
No one likes talking about taxes, thinking about taxes or doing taxes. Yet it’s what Benjamin Franklin famously called one of the two certainties of life. It’s worth considering that ZIP+4 Codes can take some of the sting out of your tax process.
Did you know that if your address isn’t accurate enough, you could end up paying more due to local boundary lines? Having a ZIP+4, from which you can establish an exact County, is a sure-fire way to ensure you provide the most accurate address data possible.
How to get ZIP+4 Codes for Salesforce
Now that you can see why ZIP+4 Codes are incredibly powerful in Salesforce CRM, it’s time to start using them!
You can easily retrieve ZIP+4 Codes for your addresses in Salesforce using AddressTools, our award-winning package for address validation, standardisation and verification.
Book a free demo
In case you can’t tell(!), we love talking about all things related to address data in Salesforce. Why not schedule a call with one of our team to chat about your ZIP+4 and wider address data requirements for your Salesforce org.