We have a term around here called “spray and pray”. It applies to the strategy of blasting out direct mail to a large group of recipients with no special targeting (spray) and then hoping that some of the folks that got the piece are actually interested in the offer (pray). While it mostly applies to direct mail here, the same term could be applied to other channels. Essentially the “blast” concept without targeting.

In the direct mail channel some organizations have relied on this method of marketing for so long, they can’t imagine doing anything different. It can be scary to make a big change and that’s exactly what the American Cancer Society did last year. They decided to eliminate direct mail completely from their acquisition strategy. From millions of direct mail pieces mailed to cold prospects to zero. All at once. What happed? Read about the decision and the results here.