Stop calling your email program 'shots' or 'blasts'

I'm not saying it's bad, but if you (or the marketing department you work in) insist on calling your email marketing campaigns something like 'e-shots', 'mail shots', 'mail blasts' or anything else similar to being expelled by force from a cannon or gun, chances are you're viewing email marketing the wrong way.

'Spray and pray' is a term coined to address the type of scattered, shotgun messaging that many companies still do today - very little segmentation, blanket messaging, no use (or misuse) of landing pages, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, as you as a customer will likely attest to, receiving an obviously non-targeted email in your inbox with useless content irrelevant to you stands a snowball's chance of enticing you to click-through.

So why not start from the source? By making your current campaigns resemble blanket bombing by name, you're simply subscribing (har har) to the action of blanket messaging your audience. Consider renaming or rethinking what you call your entire program, starting with individual campaigns, and you might start to move towards what email marketing should be - direct, 1-to-1 conversations with individuals, not faceless customers.

As a side note, a couple weeks ago I was astounded by an email from my Google PPC account rep (Michelle, she's great) who sent a perfectly targeted, obviously segmented and highly relevant email that I literally devoured. I clicked every link and read every paragraph. It contained great tips and tricks for my AdWords campaigns with data specific to my vertical (education). Conversely, today I received an email for Salsa dancing classes in Brazil, Columbia, or Venezuela. Which one did I prefer?