Email marketing can cost you almost nothing when you use Microsoft Word mail merge feature. Mail merge can be used to create emails, letters, envelopes, and labels. But for the purpose of this learning material, we cover only email mail merge. If you are a small business owner with little money to spare, and want to make good use of your IT investment in Microsoft, this is your chance. You may have a mailing list of clients or prospects that that you need to send individualized emails. It may take several hours to create these emails individually. Mail merge in Word can help you do just that in a few minutes. You start with a mailing list in Microsoft Excel 2007 and a form email that contains the message you want to send to each client. You may also add some placeholders in the email document for information that you identify as unique for each client/prospect.
Collateral needed for this exercise: Form Email in Word 2007 and Address List in Excel 2007
Create a form email in word
You can download a sample form email and sample address list (make sure to change the email addressed in this list)
a) Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Open.
a) Locate and Select the sample form email that was downloaded or your own document, then click OK.
Prepare mail merge environment and select mailing list
b) On the Mailing tab, in the Start Mail Merge group, click Start Mail Merge and then select Email Messages.
c) In the Start Mail Merge group, click Select Recipients, and then click Use Existing List.
d) Locate and Select the sample address list that was downloaded earlier, and then click OK.
e) In the Select Table window, select the Sheet 1 as this is the sheet that stores address list (leave the First row of data contains headers checked) and then click OK.
Start merging fields
a) Place your insertion point on the location in your document identified for unique messaging for customer.
b) In the case of the sample letter, select the first X located after ‘Dear’.
c) On the Mailing tab, in the Writing and Insert Fields group, click Insert Merge Fields and then select Fname.
d) Select the second X located after ‘offered to’, then click Insert Merge Fields and then select Company.
e) Select the third X located after ‘for every month’, then click Insert Merge Fields and then select Company.
f) In the Previewing Results group, click Preview Results to see the results of the merged fields.
Finish and send emails
a) In the Finish group, click on Finish & Merge
b) Select Send eMail Messages.., and then in the Merge to Email window, ensure that ‘Email’ is selected in the To: drop down list box.
c) Enter any subject of your choice in the Subject Line text box. Sample ‘Changes in your Service’
d) Click OK, to send the individualized and unique emails to all the addresses on your list.