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Merge Outlook Contact lists into emails so each recipient gets a personal email.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Mail Merge to Emails.docx
89.1 KB Mail Merge to Emails - Solution.docx
16.6 KB

Quick reference

Mail Merge to Emails

Merge Outlook Contact lists into emails so each recipient gets a personal email rather than 50 people typed onto the cc: line.

When to use

When you want to reach multiple people with the same message, and personalizing the email is paramount to the perception of your email message.  (Research shows that people are more likely to open an email that is addressed to them personally.)

Instructions

  • Begin with a blank document or a prepared letter
  • Click Mailings, ,
  • Start Mail Merge and click E-mail Messages:  

In this exercise we will use the Mailings ribbon rather than the Mail Merge Wizard. 
 

  1.  Select Recipients asks you where your list is.
    1. Select Choose from Outlook Contacts
    2. Word will access your Contacts folder and display the lists. Choose one and click OK.
  2.  Edit Recipient List button lights up and when clicked notice the options to sort and filter, or select only certain records.
    1. Click OK
  1.   Insert Merge Field allows you to place specific data fields within the text of the email.

It is VITAL that you do not erase or delete the chevron marks on the fields. They are “codes”.

  1.  Highlight Merge Fields will put a grey background (non-printing) behind the merge fields so you can easily see them within your email.
  2.  Preview Results will show how the email appears with the data displayed.  Click the arrows to view the next and previous emails.
  3.  Finish & Merge, Send Email Messages

    Enter a Subject line, make any final adjustments on this box, and click OK.
  4. The emails will process and store themselves into Outlook’s outbox until you open Outlook.
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  • 00:04 We're gonna do an advanced level mailing, an e-mail merge, okay?
  • 00:08 So then every person will get an individual e-mail directed to them, and
  • 00:12 research has shown that people are more likely to open e-mail
  • 00:15 that's addressed to them personally.
  • 00:17 So let's go ahead, and in Microsoft Word, click on Mailings.
  • 00:20 Click on Start Mail Merge.
  • 00:21 And go ahead and choose Email Messages.
  • 00:24 Don't worry about the format that just changed, cuz email is an Internet product.
  • 00:28 It is not confined by margins.
  • 00:29 The margins are determined by the user's screen width on the other end.
  • 00:34 Okay, notice on my ribbon right up here,
  • 00:37 everything is grayed out except for Select Recipients.
  • 00:40 So I'm gonna go ahead and activate that.
  • 00:42 And I can Type a New List, Use an Existing, or Choose from Outlook Contacts.
  • 00:47 Outlook happens to be my email program, and so
  • 00:50 that is how the emails will get sent, so I'm going to choose from Outlook Contacts.
  • 00:54 It's looking at my Outlook right now, and
  • 00:56 I need you to know that my Outlook is open in the background.
  • 01:00 In previous versions it had to be closed.
  • 01:02 I'm actually surprised this works.
  • 01:03 So I'm going to go ahead and choose contacts.
  • 01:06 If there were other contact lists in here, they would they would show,
  • 01:09 I only have one with three contacts in there.
  • 01:12 So I'll go ahead and click OK on this screen, and now it's showing
  • 01:17 me the contents of that e-mail, so basically that e-mail database.
  • 01:23 And I can pick and choose, I can sort and
  • 01:26 filter, I can filter by zip code, it doesn't matter.
  • 01:29 I'm going to leave them all in there and I'm going to hit OK.
  • 01:32 And notice now on my ribbon, more of the options lit up.
  • 01:36 So at this point I've got to put in some lines here.
  • 01:41 Like my dear first name, I'm gonna hit the Insert Merge Field.
  • 01:44 Now on our previous lessons, there were only a handful of items on here, but
  • 01:48 in this particular one, I have to tell you, look at them all.
  • 01:51 Because every Outlook contact has about a hundred fields in it, so
  • 01:54 you're seeing them all right here on the screen.
  • 01:57 It's not just a handful of fields, it's all of them.
  • 01:59 So I'm gonna put Dear first, right here.
  • 02:02 And let's see, right here, I could put Address field.
  • 02:06 Let's see, there we go, Address.
  • 02:08 And oops, better hit Enter right there.
  • 02:11 And you can just get really formal on this thing.
  • 02:14 And of course I could identify their company name.
  • 02:18 It's gonna look so professional to actually send out an email with all this
  • 02:22 identifying information in it, cuz it'll feel like I took the time to address
  • 02:26 this specifically to them, so just want you to know that.
  • 02:29 All right, so let's go ahead and finish this.
  • 02:31 Everything is done.
  • 02:32 My codes are in there and I have my chevrons in there.
  • 02:35 I can even hit the preview right now and take a look at what’s gonna happen.
  • 02:39 It is changing a little bit.
  • 02:42 I can probably formalize this one a little more so I'll do that preview,
  • 02:48 and of course I would probably add let’s see first name, space bar, and last name
  • 02:53 right there, just to make it a little more formal, so it doesn't look so awkward.
  • 02:57 And the last step of course is to Finish and Merge.
  • 03:00 When I Finish and Merge, I can edit them, print them, or just send email messages.
  • 03:04 I'm just gonna go ahead and
  • 03:05 send email messages because the email addresses will be in there.
  • 03:08 Here's your chance to type a subject line and send them all.
  • 03:12 And then when you hit OK, they're going to land in the outbox.
  • 03:16 As you can see it just cycled through those.
  • 03:18 They're gonna land in the outbox of your Outlook.
  • 03:21 So you've got to get into Outlook, and you've got to hit Send, all right?
  • 03:25 So kinda great that it did work alongside of Outlook on the 2016 version.
  • 03:29 I guarantee you in 2013, I would've hit a couple error messages, but
  • 03:34 they seem to have fixed that and gotten past it.
  • 03:36 I love that, so welcome to email merging from Microsoft Word into Outlook.
  • 03:43 All right, thank you.

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