Background on Case Study:

In Wisconsin, filing taxes online continues to grow in popularity. The number of electronically filed returns is up 35% compared to the same time last year. This year, 1.27 million electronic returns were filed. That means 44 percent of this year's 2.9 million state income tax returns will have been filed electronically.

Electronically filed returns are cheaper for the state to process. They contain fewer mistakes than paper returns and offer a much faster turn-around time. Tax refunds can be back in taxpayers' hands in days rather than weeks. This year, for the first time, state tax filers can also submit their state income taxes on-line for free, with Wisconsin's Free-File program.

Spreading the word:

To reduce costs and keep taxes low, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue contacted taxpayers this year via this e-mail. Success in large part was a result of being able to acquire the email addresses of potential participants. Rosslyn, VA based AcquireSoft Inc partnered with the DOR to append the offline mailing addresses with valid, deliverable email addresses and the consent of the recipient to receive information.

AcquireSoft Email Append ™ is an online customer acquisition service that helps organizations convert offline customers to online customers. This service appends email addresses, the most valuable piece of online customer information, to customer records in the offline database. With only a name and postal address, Email Append provides the most cost effective solution for connecting with your customers online.

Getting Results:

After randomly selecting , records, an AcquireSoft specialist launched a test to determine overall match rate and campaign response. Based on the results, AcquireSoft appended a database of DOR's offline records and achieved a match rate of over 28%. Not only was the unsubscribe rate below 0.25% but the campaign open rate ranged between an astonishing 43%!

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