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

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 on the Mailings ribbon, choose 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
    • Select Choose from Outlook Contacts
    • Word will access your Contacts folder (if Outlook is closed) 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.
    • Click OK
  3.   Insert Merge Field allow«Title»s 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 “field 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.
    • If Outlook is open at the time, they will send immediately.
    • If Outlook is not open, remember to open it for the emails to send.
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  • 00:04 This lesson is a mail merge to emails,
  • 00:06 very similar to the form letters lesson, except we'll be choosing emails.
  • 00:11 And we need a lot less information on the letter itself, because the email will have
  • 00:16 the current date and we generally aren't that formal with name and company name.
  • 00:21 So I'm going to delete the very top of this letter and
  • 00:24 we're going to go very casual with this.
  • 00:26 On the Mailings ribbon, over on the left we have Start Mail Nerge and
  • 00:30 we're going to choose Email Messages.
  • 00:32 As soon as I click this,
  • 00:34 the format of the letter changed because emails aren't bound by margins.
  • 00:39 So the margins went away.
  • 00:42 So let's go ahead and now select our recipients.
  • 00:45 I'm not going to type a new list.
  • 00:47 I'm not going to use the existing.
  • 00:48 I'm actually going to use my Outlook contacts.
  • 00:50 Outlook and Microsoft Word talk to each other.
  • 00:53 So it works really well if you're already using Outlook.
  • 00:57 I'll go ahead and click on that and select my list.
  • 01:00 I made a list specifically for this project and I'll go ahead and click OK.
  • 01:06 Notice the same block shows up just as in all the other lessons.
  • 01:10 So those are the fields that I entered, but because this is an email list,
  • 01:16 look at how many more fields are available.
  • 01:19 Every email contact has about 50 fields available.
  • 01:23 So whether I use them or not is up to me.
  • 01:25 But it's far beyond just the little list I typed before.
  • 01:29 This has a lot of field headers.
  • 01:31 I'll go ahead and click OK to this one.
  • 01:33 Notice that all the buttons lit up on top of my mailings ribbon,
  • 01:38 and now it's time to go ahead and put in the fields.
  • 01:42 So first of all it says, Hello FirstName.
  • 01:44 I'll double click this.
  • 01:45 I don't want to Address Block.
  • 01:47 I could use a Greeting Line, but this is very informal, so
  • 01:50 I'm just going to hit the Insert Merge Field.
  • 01:52 And again, here is the entire list of all
  • 01:55 the fields available from a Microsoft Outlook contact.
  • 02:00 I'll just go ahead and double click first.
  • 02:03 Notice the chevrons.
  • 02:04 Don't delete those chevrons.
  • 02:06 You'll break everything.
  • 02:07 And I choose to go ahead and highlight my merge fields so
  • 02:10 I can see where they're at in the text.
  • 02:12 I'll double click the company name here.
  • 02:15 Go into my Insert Merge Field, find Company.
  • 02:18 I'll go ahead and click address, merge fields and find Address.
  • 02:24 And I can hit the Preview Results and scroll through each one.
  • 02:28 There's quite a few more in this particular list.
  • 02:31 And at the very end, now that that's all set up, I'm going to hit Finish and Merge.
  • 02:36 Now beware right here.
  • 02:38 If I Edit Individual Documents, I'm going to end up with a bunch of papers
  • 02:43 on my navigation pane that I now have to send to an email.
  • 02:47 If I Print Documents, well, it's just not going to work.
  • 02:51 Since this is an email merge, I would hit the send Email Messages.
  • 02:55 Now I'm safe to hit that right now.
  • 02:57 It's not going to shoot to my email yet.
  • 02:59 So I'm going to hit Send Email Messages.
  • 03:02 And this is my one last chance to type a proper subject line.
  • 03:07 I'm going to go ahead and click OK.
  • 03:09 And as soon as I hit this, watch what happens in the background.
  • 03:13 Clicking OK, it's flipping through every single address and
  • 03:18 shooting them to my outbox right now.
  • 03:23 In fact,
  • 03:24 I just took a quick screen clip so you can see what my outbox looks like right now.
  • 03:28 Notice I put in fake email addresses.
  • 03:30 I don't want random innocent people getting my emails on this lesson.
  • 03:33 So, that's how fast it happens.
  • 03:37 It's kind of great.
  • 03:39 This is the one I use the most because I contact all my clients once a month with
  • 03:43 a new and cool computer tip.
  • 03:45 So it's just fun to be able to do that through the emails so
  • 03:49 you're not dealing with all the paper and the mailing and the cost of mailing.
  • 03:54 So that's a great lesson.
  • 03:56 Practice it, don't be afraid of it.
  • 03:58 Practice on your friends and relatives first, and then just be brave and
  • 04:03 start using the mail merge to emails.

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