Personalization Goes A Long Way

Imagine the time you could save if you properly managed all of your contact information and could easily send a personalized note or email to a few dozen or thousands of people at the same time. All without hiring an outside marketing firm or spending countless hours. Think of the difference when you receive something generic vs. a personalized note or email. With Microsoft’s mail merge feature it is possible to communicate a single message to a large group of people and still add that special personalized element to all your emails, mailing labels, or letters. Here’s how:

To Begin

To do a mail merge you will need both a data source and some type of letter or document. A data source can come in the form of an excel spreadsheet. You can also use your Outlook contacts or address book as a data source as well when you do a mail merge in outlook. Your data source should be clear and well organized with proper headings.

Starting with your current document, whether it’s a word document or a new email message in Outlook, select the mail merge feature. On the right hand side of the page, a Mail Merge pane will open and begin to walk you through the steps.

Select document type i.e. email, letter, labels
Select starting document
Use the current document or your can use a saved email draft or template if you have that saved
Select Recipients

You can select recipients from an existing excel file or CSV file or you can select your recipients directly from your outlook contacts folder. When selecting a specific excel file or CSV file (data source) you will be prompted to browse for the file. When selecting from you Outlook Contact folder you will be prompted to choose a contacts folder. A window will open that will show the contact folder associated with your specific email account and Outlook profile.

Write your email message – Go ahead and write your email or letter if you haven’t already done so and then include the personalization that you would like including greetings and addresses. If you would like to include different fields or omit certain fields select the match field’s options to achieve your desired format.

4. Preview Your Message

At this point you can scroll through all of your messages to make sure everything is to your satisfaction. If not, you are able to return to the previous steps to make any additional changes. If you are satisfied, go ahead and complete the merge.

5. Complete the Merge

For this exercise we are writing an email and performing a mail merge using Outlook. When you go ahead and complete the merge you will be prompted to include a subject for your email and email address. To do an email merge, you would have had to include the emails in the original data source, however, for this exercise I wanted to give you a brief overview of the process so that you can choose to do it in Microsoft Word or Outlook as an email or document.

There is much you can do with the mail merge feature in Microsoft. If used effectively, it can save a lot of time and allow you to reach a greater number of people in a slighly more personalized way. Please keep in mind that this article only serves as a brief introduction and if you would like more information on this and other features please feel free to contact us here at Everon.

For more information about this article please contact cmackin@everonit.com.

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