It works by automatically adding personalization data from a data file (for example, a spreadsheet) to a template file (like a letter or an email). Show
In this article, I’ll first cover what a mail merge is and explain how it works. Then, I’ll go over how to mail merge using an Excel spreadsheet and a Word document. Later, I’ll mention two issues of using the traditional method for mail merges and suggest a better and more powerful alternative to help you send mass emails. Additionally, I’ll also answer seven FAQs associated with mail merges. This Article Contains:(Click on links to jump to specific sections)
Let’s jump right in. What Are Mail Merges?A mail merge lets you create personalized documents that are automatically customized on a recipient-by-recipient basis. This spares you the trouble of manually personalizing each document yourself! You can use mail merges to create personalized messages automatically for:
Note: A form letter is a template file used to create mass letters. Instead of typing a letter for each recipient, you can use a form letter to make quick, unique, personalized letters for each person. Essentially, if there’s a document you need to personalize at scale, mail merges can take care of it for you! Go back to Contents Let’s now explore how a mail merge works. How Does Mail Merge Work?First, you need to understand the two essential components of every mail merge. They are:
Essentially, a mail merge automatically adds the personalization data from your data file to your template file. For example, let’s say you want to perform a mail merge to create mass letters. Notice the «FirstName», «Address» and other tags in the letter? A mail merge field draws the personalization information from your data file (spreadsheet) to help you create your personalized letter. But to make this work, the name of the mail merge field in your personalized letter template must match the name of the column header in your spreadsheet. If the name of the merge fields and column headers match, the mail merge function would then merge your data file and your letter template to generate a personalized letter for each person. Go back to Contents Next, I’ll go over the steps involved in using mail merge to automatically personalize individual letters. How to Use Mail Merge to Send Bulk LettersYou can use the mail merge feature in Word and Excel to create auto-personalized individual letters quickly. Here:
Let’s now explore the steps involved in using mail merge for bulk letters: Step 1: Create and format your address list in Microsoft ExcelHere’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up an Excel data file: Step A Note: If your contact data is readily available as an Excel spreadsheet, open the file and format it. If the data is present in a TXT or CSV file, go to Data → From Text/CSV to open the file in Excel. Step B Check your header row to make sure the column headers in your Excel spreadsheet are exactly the same as the field names (or placeholder names) you want to use in your Word template document. For example, if the column names in your Excel sheet are “FirstName”, “LastName”, and “Email”, the field names in your Microsoft Word document should also be “FirstName”, “LastName”, and “Email”. Step C Quick Tip 1. Select a column that has numeric data entries. 2. Go to the Home → Number section. 3. Click on the Number Format box and choose the correct format from the drop-down list that appears. 4. Repeat steps 1–3 for all columns containing numeric values. Step D Bonus Tip for Gmail Users Note: Ensure that you finish all edits to the Excel spreadsheet before starting the mail merge process. Making edits to an Excel sheet once you’ve already begun a mail merge is a complicated additional step. Step 2: Create the main mail merge document in MS WordThe next step is to create the form letter (or mail merge template — your main document) in MS Word. You can create a different mail merge template for every bulk email campaign, and you can save the templates for future use. A favorite time-saving technique of mass email managers is to choose an old email template that worked well, update the content where necessary, and give the mail merge template a new name. As a result, when you create your mail merge document, try writing it in a way that will let you adapt and reuse it in future bulk mailings. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a mail merge template in MS Word: Step A This is the main document for your mail merge. Step B You can select the document type for letters, emails, envelopes, mailing labels, or a directory. Since we’re using the Word mail merge feature for sending letters, choose Letters as your merge document. Step C (Optional) The wizard lets you quickly select the starting mail merge document. For example, it lets you use the current document, which is the mail merge letter you’re creating now. Or you could choose a starter template or another existing document as your mail merge template. Step D (Don’t worry about manually adding placeholders in your letter yet.) Step 3: Select the recipient listNow you can select the list of mail merge recipients (from your Excel file) who will receive your letter. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this: Step A As your contact information is already available as an Excel file, click on Use an Existing List. Note: You can also include your Outlook Contact list if you have Outlook connected to Word. Step B Step C Note: If your Excel spreadsheet has only one worksheet, you’ll only see Sheet1 in the Select Table window. Step D In the Mail Merge Recipients window that pops up, clear the checkbox of the person you don’t want in your mailing list. Anyone you remove from your recipient list in this step will be removed from any mail merge project that uses this data file in the future. Step 4: Add personalized messagesThe next step is to add personalized content (like contact names and addresses) to your form letter template (Word mail merge document). In Word, you can insert three personalization variables into your document:
Here’s a walkthrough on how to add all three personalization variables to your merge document (form letter): Note: You can add a personalization variable at an insertion point of your choice in the Word document. For example, to add a greeting line before the body of your letter, simply place the text cursor at the point you want to add it. A. Insert an Address blockTo insert a recipient’s address from your Excel worksheet, click on Address Block from the Write & Insert Fields section. In the window that appears, choose an address block format of your choice and click OK. An address placeholder («AddressBlock») will be inserted automatically into your letter. B. Insert a Greeting LineTo insert a greeting line, click on Greeting Line from the Write & Insert fields section. A greeting placeholder («GreetingLine») will be automatically added to your document. C. Insert a Merge FieldYou can also add other mail merge fields, like your contact’s first name, company name, email id, etc., from your Excel worksheet to your Word template. To do this, click on Insert Merge Field from the Write & Insert fields group. If you want to create a custom field, the easiest way is to add a column to your spreadsheet with the name of the custom field you want to make, like “birthday” or “pet name”. But you must do this before starting the mail merge process since you can’t edit your spreadsheet during mail merge. Click on the mail merge fields you want to add to your letter. Note: You can also use the Match Fields feature to manually match your Excel column fields with the Word placeholders. This way, you can ensure that all the mail merge fields are accurately mapped to your Excel column names. Step 5: Preview and finish the mail merge processAfter personalizing the form letter for each recipient, you can preview the letters to see how they look with the data inserted from your Excel worksheet. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this: Step A Step B For example, to preview the form letter for my second recipient — Brandon Walsh, I type “2” in the text box and click the Preview Results button. Note: You can also click on the Next and Previous buttons to quickly scroll through your mailing list to preview the letter for each person. If you realize someone who is scheduled to receive your bulk email should be removed from the recipient list, refer to Step 3 (D) for instructions. Step C From the drop-down list that appears, you can choose to:
Note: If you want to send the letters as email messages to a Gmail or Outlook contact, you must manually set up Gmail/Outlook with Word. Step 6: Save the form letterAfter you’ve finished working with the merged document, you can save it by pressing the Ctrl+S keys or by going to the File menu and clicking Save or Save As. You can also reuse the merged document for sending additional letters — just open it and click Yes when Word prompts you with this alert: Go back to Contents How to Use Mail Merge to Send Mass EmailsYou can use mail merge to quickly create personalized emails for newsletters, promos, and other email marketing messages. Here, your mailing list is the data file, while the email is the mail merge template. We’ve seen how to use Excel and Word to create personalized form letters. However, I don’t recommend using Microsoft Word to send personalized emails at scale. Here’s why… 2 Problems of Using Microsoft Word to Send Mass EmailsWhile you can use a Microsoft Word document to create merged emails, there are two major drawbacks with this approach:
Image Source: Twitter Now, imagine sending hundreds of such embarrassing emails! How to Use Mail Merge with GMass to Send Mass EmailsGMass is a powerful mail merge tool that lets you easily create and send tons of emails from your Gmail account. Its advanced mail merge features have made it a popular tool used by employees from LinkedIn, Uber, Google, and Twitter. GMass is also perfect for individuals and groups like clubs, schools, churches, and other institutions to send emails to a target audience. With GMass, you can easily create a mail merge with a data file stored as an Excel spreadsheet or a Google Sheet. Here’s how: Step 1: Import your Excel spreadsheet into Google SheetsThe first step is to import your Excel file into Google Sheets (this takes only a few seconds). Why would you want to do this? Plus, if you’re sending emails, it makes sense to have your spreadsheet online, right? Additionally, Google Sheets is completely free and can be used by anyone with a Google (Gmail or Google Workspace) account. You won’t need a Microsoft Office subscription! Note: If your data file is a CSV file, you can also import it into Google Sheets. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to import your Excel document into Google Sheets: Note: I’ll be using the Excel sheet shown in the screenshot below for the walkthrough. Step A Step B Step C Step D Step E Step F Step 2: Format your Google SheetYour Google Sheet must be well-formatted before you use it with GMass. Here are some guidelines to ensure it works well:
GMass will auto-detect all column names during the mail merge process. It will automatically use the column labels in your Google Sheet as the placeholders in your email template. Step 3: Install GMass and connect it to your Gmail accountIf you haven’t installed the GMass Chrome extension yet, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to install and connect it to your Gmail account quickly: Step A Step B Step C Click on the Add extension button to add GMass to Chrome. Step D After logging in, you can see three new GMass buttons next to your Gmail search box. Click on one of these buttons, and you’ll be prompted to link your Gmail account to GMass: Click on the Connect GMass Now! button to connect your Gmail account with GMass. Note: Simply installing the GMass extension doesn’t create a GMass account. It only makes the buttons appear in your Gmail account. You have to link it to your Gmail account (as above) to activate it. Step 4: Connect your Google Sheet to GMassHere’s a step-by-step guide on how to perform this last step: Step A Step B Step C Note: If you have only one sheet (Sheet1) in your Google spreadsheet, that sheet gets chosen by default. However, if your spreadsheet has multiple sheets, you can select the sheet you want from the drop-down list. Once you’ve chosen a spreadsheet, click on the CONNECT TO SPREADSHEET button. Step D Note: GMass replaces the list of individual email addresses with a single alias address. However, you can choose to display the email addresses individually. This way, you’ll be able to see the email IDs of everyone on your recipient list — but don’t worry, each recipient will see only their email address (just like when you add recipients to the BCC field). Step E Click on the Personalize drop-down list button to see all the column names present in your Google sheet. To personalize your email, select the column labels from the drop-down list. You can add these placeholders anywhere in your email message and subject line. Here’s how my personalized email looks like with placeholders: Notice the {FirstName} variable? Step F Note: GMass will auto-personalize the email for each person based on the mail merge labels you’ve used in your message. For example, the third recipient of my email, Ron Carey, will receive an email that starts with “Dear Ron,” as the {FirstName} variable was used in the email message. Go back to Contents Now that we’ve seen how to use mail merge to send mass emails let’s check out some important mail merge FAQs. 7 Mail Merge FAQsHere are the answers to seven commonly asked questions regarding mail merge: 1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of email mail merge?Mail merge for your email marketing or cold emailing has several strong advantages, such as:
On the other hand, a mail merge also has some disadvantages for email campaigns:
2. Can you perform an email merge with an attachment?When you’re using Word, you don’t have the option to include an attachment with a standard mail merge message, but you can if you use the Mail Merge Toolkit add-in for Microsoft Office. However, if you’re after a better solution, use a purpose-built mail merge platform like GMass that not only lets you include an attachment but even allows you to choose different attachments for each recipient. Read more about how to send a mass email with personalized attachments. 3. How do you use a Mail Merge Toolkit in Word?The Mail Merge Toolkit for Word is a third-party add-in that lets you do more personalization than the standard Word mail merge alone (for example, including attachments). You can download a free trial and view an online toolkit tutorial to get started. Once you have the program, go to the Start Mail Merge selection under the Mailings tab and follow the prompts. 4. Can you send a mail merge from a shared mailbox?If you want to send a mail merge from a shared mailbox (such as from an email address named for a department, company, or event instead of a person), you can arrange it in Outlook. Start by finding the “Other User’s Folder” and open it to navigate to the shared mailbox. Associate that mailbox with the spreadsheet that contains your recipients’ data and prepare the mail merge as usual. 5. How do you do a mail merge in Word for labels?One of the coolest features of MS Word’s mail merge functionality is the ability to drive printed labels with placement designed in Word and data-driven by your personalization datasheet. If you know how to do a letter or email mail merge in Word, labels are very easy. Under the Mailings tab in Word, click the Start Mail Merge selection and then the Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard. Choose Label as your template document type, and under Label Options, select a label manufacturer and style number (for example, Avery 5160, etc.). From there, follow the wizard’s prompts. You may also want to view Microsoft’s brief and helpful video tutorial. 6. How do you do a mail merge with Outlook?To create an Outlook mail merge, you’ll need to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook. Starting in Word, choose the Mailings menu, then Start Email Merge, and then Email Messages. When your message is ready, click Select Recipients to link to the Excel spreadsheet with your data. Then, select Finish & Merge to send your email to your list using Outlook. For more info, read my article on performing a mail merge in Outlook. 7. What is extended mail merge?If you’re a Salesforce user, you have two options for mail merge — standard and extended. Standard mail merge is the preferred approach for those with specific CRM software and operating systems, such as Luminate CRM and Windows 10. Extended mail merge is a mail merge tool for all other Salesforce users. Although the tools are different, the results are the same — personalized emails to recipients listed in Salesforce. Go back to Contents Final ThoughtsMail merging isn’t rocket science. While you can use Microsoft Word to perform mail merges for letters, you need to follow a large number of steps correctly. Additionally, for sending mass emails, you have to set up a webmail client with Word manually. Instead, why not use a powerful mail merge tool like GMass for sending mass emails? Its advanced mass mailing features help you to perform mail merges and send out bulk emails effortlessly. How do I do a mail merge from an Excel spreadsheet?You can insert one or more mail merge fields that pull the information from your spreadsheet into your document.. Go to Mailings > Insert Merge Field.. Add the field you want.. Repeat steps 1 and 2 as needed.. Choose File > Save.. How do I merge an Excel document into a Word document?On your Word document, highlight the field you want to populate with the data from Excel. On the Mailings tab, choose the 'Insert Merge Field' button, a list of the column headers on your saved excel document will drop down (i.e. Company Name, etc.). Choose the appropriate field you want to merge and choose Insert.
How do I automatically merge data from Excel to Word?Open Word, choose File > Options > Advanced. Under General, select the Confirm file format conversion on open check box. Choose OK. On the Mailings tab, choose Start Mail Merge > Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard.
What are the simple steps in creating mail merge?Set up and Choose Document Type. Click the Mailings tab.. Click the Start Mail Merge button.. Select Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard. The Mail Merge pane appears on the right, ready to walk you through the mail merge.. Select a type of document to create.. Click Next: Starting document.. |