A Comparison of ZIP Code Population Estimates

The census that is conducted every 10 years by the US Census Bureau is the only population estimate that makes an attempt to count every member of the population by sending a survey to every household in the USA. Completion is required. The population size changes relatively little over time. Over a 5 year period, the U.S. population is only expected to grow by 4.1% and an each ZIP code is likely to vary be less than 10%. That leaves an extremely small amount of room for error.

Another way to approximate the population is to use a sampling method. Instead of spending $15 billion to survey the entire US, the Census Bureau spends around $250 million to send the American Community Survey (ACS) to part of the country. The answers (such as the number of people in the household) help to estimate the population as a whole. To get those huge savings, a small percentage of the population is surveyed which leaves a range instead of a precise number. The margin of error that determines the size of the range is larger than the expected population growth.

Another way to approximate the population is to estimate. As confirmed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the number of tax returns filed for a ZIP code can be used to approximate the number of households and the number of exemptions can be used to approximate the population. However, estimates are not perfect. 

The evolving role of the Chief Data Officer 

Data has become a big part of organization decision making and success. Organizations rely on data as a predictive tool for making decisions such as target market, how much product to produce, and upcoming trends they can take advantage of. With such a greater emphasis on data and data quality, more and more organizations are hiring Chief Data Officers and considering their role to be an essential part of the executive team.

With the emergence of such a new role, the associated job descriptions of Chief Data Officers, or sometimes called Chief Analytics Officers, vary drastically from organization to organization depending on the organization’s needs. As with all change, there are some who hesitate or don’t understand the importance and need for change. For many stakeholders this is the case, as stakeholders need to understand the importance of the CDO’s work before they will buy-in.

Without a narrowly defined role, CDO’s have a lot of leeway for shaping their jobs, much like entrepreneurs. With a business focus and a understanding of the strategy and direction their organization is heading, CDO’s find a way to accomplish their objectives by using data.

Many organizations are even combining the roles of Chief Data Officer and Chief Analytics Officer into one, because data only becomes useful when it is good quality and once it can be explained by means such as analytics.

With the growth of the role, certain trends and patterns are being set and followed for the progression of the CDO role, but there is still a lot of room for change.

Marketing by Zip Code

The idea that a business can reach consumers across the United States and Canada within a few minutes would have stunned early marketers. Before the rapid breakthrough’s in technology of the internet, television, radio, and freeways, marketing was confined to small geographic areas and was done primarily through word of mouth and local newspaper ads. Today, just the opposite problems exist, its too easy to reach people and so business find themselves competing for the attention of consumers. This has leads to more specific intention marketing. Rather than spend immense amounts of ad spend trying to reach everyone and hope someone notices you and then wants to take action and purchase, targeting specific people who are most likely to buy leads to increase ROI and greater overall profits.

There are many ways to target consumers. Age, gender, ethnicity, hobbies, and income are among a few, but if your product or service is applicable to any of these categories, then targeting by geographic area may be the most effective option. For your business, it may be easier or more cost effective to deliver or offer your product in particular areas, for example if your product is related to farming, you would want to target areas where farmers live and own property. While you could choose a county or city, you may still be paying marketing expenses for many people not in your target audience. Zip Codes group areas that are similar to each other, for example a business park may have its own Zip Code, or a group of apartments. Targeting by Zip Code more effectively allow you to reach the right geographic group that will give you the boost in new customers and sales your business needs.

When targeting by Zip Code, you can decide how specific you want your campaign to be by choosing to use a basic 5-digit Zip Code grouping, or a much more detailed 9-digit Zip Code. Both are created by the USPS, but the 9-digit Zip Code is specific to delivery areas and routes of the postal delivery workers. The 9-digit Zip Code will give you the most insight into areas that are very similar to each other, like neighborhoods with similar income residents, or an apartment complex. The 5-digit Zip Code breaks up areas of a city and possibly surrounding cities that tend to be similar, but doesn’t break the areas up to the same specific detail as the 9-digit Zip Code. 

Changing Zip Codes and why they change

The USPS is busy constantly adding and deleting Zip Codes according to the needs of growing or diminishing city populations throughout America. For example, a press release announced that in April 2018, the USPS released 16 new Zip Codes and retired 1 Zip Code. A whopping 17 changes occurred in a single month, and higher numbers of changes have been known to occur within a month’s time.

If you haven’t updated your Zip Code database recently, chances are you have incorrect data about your customers. The USPS releases press announcements with every Zip Code change, so checking your local USPS press release every few months can help you stay on top of any changes going on around you. If you have customers across the nation, manually fixing the dozens of Zip Code changes that occur each month nation-wide may become a burden.

The easiest way to fix this problem is with a monthly Zip Code database subscription that gives you instant access to all zip code changes that have occurred within the past month. Large and small companies find this to be useful in allowing them to maintain accurate data with ease.

 Why are Zip Codes so important to companies?

Zip Codes were originally created for the sole purpose of improving the efficiency of mail delivery throughout the United States. Since their creation and widespread acceptance, ZIP Codes have become another useful tool, they give significant insight into the people that reside within them. For example, a ZIP Code can reveal an accurate picture of a person’s income, health status/risks, education, culture, religion, and more. This is because ZIP Codes break down cities into neighborhoods, and in some cases even cross city lines. While a large city may have a wealthy and well-educated area, it may also have an area of residents with no college degree and low-income levels. Simply knowing that a person was from this city would make it difficult to determine what kind of neighborhood they live in, but knowing if they were from the wealthy area of this city, which has a separate ZIP Code than the low-income area, would provide a great deal more information.

ZIP Codes can even affect how much insurance companies charge on car insurance, as accident rates for the ZIP Code are tracked, and other factors such as weather conditions, population density, road conditions, and crime rates are taken into account. In terms of health care, a ZIP Code can predict the life expectancy of the average resident and show gaps in life expectancy between several or all the Zip Codes located in one city.

With so much powerful data being collected based on Zip Code, having an up-to-date and accurate Zip Code Database is essential for any company wanting to target optimal populations based on Zip Code Area, or to discover hidden trends (such as large percentages of customers coming from Zip Codes with low average age, or high education levels). With thousands of Zip Codes changes happening throughout every year, its important to make sure you regularly update your Zip Code Data with a database such as our 5-digit or Zip+4 database.

Improve Your Data Analytics Strategy With these 5 Steps

Most organizations use traditional approaches when it comes to surveys and data analytics, according to a recent study. If organizations want to find success in using their data to achieve their goals, they need to implement a transformational approach to data and analytics.

More than half of employees are of the same opinion in thinking their organization should be doing better with analyzing useful data in order to reap the great potential benefits. These benefits can include such things as being able to use advanced predictive and prescriptive forms of analytics, and having better relationships with suppliers and partners. The benefits ultimately lead to an increased competitive advantage, that could be the push the organization needs to pull ahead in the industry.

Analytics has been guiding companies in determining the most efficient process to use, providing a better customer experience, and guiding product development to more customer minded outcomes.

Its easy for organizations to meet roadblocks when trying to increase analytic and data use, beware of these 5 things and your organization will have a much better ability to implement data strategies and reap the benefits.

1. The Wrong Culture

An organizations culture influences the mindset of employees and sets expectations for what is appropriate. Employees can have difficulty thriving if they don’t feel they are following the flow of the culture. Unfortunately, culture is harder to change the longer the organization has existed, and for many organizations if culture is not intentionally created by the founders, it can form into destructive attitudes and mindsets that employees feel they have to follow in order to fit in.

To have a culture ideal for advanced data and analytics acceptance, employees need to feel that they have support in the data gathering process, which often takes more than one shot in order to get the data that gives the right insights. If employees have to worry about penalties when the first shot doesn’t produce desired results, then they won’t be willing to take a shot at all. Using data in a transformational way requires spotting small insights, and a lot of them, then piecing them together to create a complete picture over time.

2. Data Must Be Current and Accurate

Data changes as rapid rates, even data that seems to change slowly over time can cause large misleading results if it is assumed to be still relevant despite it not being current. Transformational data is real-time or as close to real time as possible. Insights into trends appear over time and can lead to big outcomes. We understand this here at Zip Code Download, and that’s why we offer monthly updates of our data, so your organization will never be held back by inaccurate information when it comes to Zip Code Data.

3. Help the un-analytical minds

Not all employees are going to have a background in analytics and understand its importance, or even understand it at all. This doesn’t mean they are not valuable employees; they may have a great business mindset that helps them create strategic campaigns. Help those who don’t understand analytics to see the value and find meaning amongst all the numbers. When business and analytics come together, businesses are able to jump ahead of the competition and dive into trends that will put them on top. Products that fulfill needs are made when the right information and talent comes together.

Need to do a Zip code lookup?

Need to do a Zip Code Lookup? Everyone needs to do it at least once in a while, with how important Zip Codes are in sending mail, identifying where customers reside, or for data collection matching the right zip code to the right address is essential. Even customers who may be stored in a database from years previous may require a zip code check every once in a while to ensure their zip code has not changed. Of course, it’s best to do this monthly since the USPS makes monthly changes to Zip Code boundaries, or by them adding or deleting Zip Codes, but if incredibly accurate data is not necessary, then quarterly or yearly may be enough.

If you have a small database and need to only look up a few Zip Codes, then we offer a free tool to do so. Simply look up what State you are needing a Zip Code for, and scroll until you find the city of the address you are finding a Zip Code for, you can do so here. If you want to do a reverse Zip Code Lookup, by tying in the Zip Code to find the city, you can do that here.

If you have a larger database and can’t manually do a zip code lookup, then the 5 or 9 digit Zip Code Database will do wonders for saving time. Get basic information about a zip code, or extensive depending on your need. You can also automate the whole process using our API and perform radius searches.

The Magic of the Zip Code API

Zip codes seem pretty simple, they are just a set of numbers identifying a specific area, but without them it would take a lot longer to receive mail and with less address accuracy. By incorporating a zip code database into an API tool that can easily be added into your websites checkout page, customers can quickly type their address verify that your site has the correct address listed. The Zip Code API performs address autocompletion and validation, so you can verify the customer did not make a mistake in inputting their address. Simplifying the checkout process brings tremendous benefits as customers are less likely to become bored or frustrated making them less likely to leave your site without completing the purchase.

The Zip Code API can do more than just speed up the customer check-out process, additional benefits include distance, radius, and location tools so you can easily compute where your customers are located in relation to each other. The best part is the Zip Code Data is updated monthly so you never have to worry about inaccurate or changed zip codes.

See how the API tools works by visiting out website https://zipcodedownload.com/ZipCodeApi and entering your own zip code.

Top Differences between U.S. 5 Digit Zip Code and Zip Plus 4 Database

You’ve probably had your 5-digit zip code memorized since you were a small child, but you may be surprised to learn that some zip codes require an additional four numbers in order for mail to accurately and quickly arrive. So, when do you need the additional four numbers in your database? 

The Zip Plus 4 (9 Digit Zip Code)

While only the 5-digit zip code is needed to deliver mail If you’re a business sending large amounts of mail to customers, or if you need raw data power, a zip plus 4 database may be the right fit for you so you can ensure you have the most information possible. Its important to note that it is not necessary to include the plus 4 digits in order for a piece of mail to be delivered, and in most instances only a 5-digit database is needed. You can think of the extra four digits as more precise data to pinpoint where a house is located, kind of like a zip code within a zip code. Sometimes the extra four digits represent a apartment complex or a city within a zip code.

While we usually write only a 5-digit zip code on mail, or when looking up a city, the USPS still uses the zip plus 4 code in order to deliver mail. Luckily for us a USPS machine is able to determine the 9-digit zip code from the address listed on the envelope, but it is still used today as a means of quickly sorting mail to precise locations.

Accuracy is Everything

Of course, the most important element of any zip code database is how up-to-date the data is. At zipcodedownload.com we update our database monthly with the latest zip code changes made by the USPS.  Each month you can download the current month’s updated database, and know that you are using the best data available.

Why Do Organizations Need Zip Code Data to Succeed?

While developing and managing CRM systems for many years, it has become clear that organizations are missing out on substantial opportunities to grow sales. What are the main challenges at hand:

• The CRM database is growing rapidly and is becoming unstructured.

• We can not effectively run marketing and sales activities across cities, counties, or even metro areas.

• The sales team needs to know where to focus their efforts.

Without geo data to structure and enhance the existing CRM, and without market data to track against current market share, it’s impossible to effectively manage sales growth....Read more....

check zip codes at http://zip-code-database.com/