How to Complete a Mail Merge in Microsoft Outlook

A mail merge is an effective and efficient way to communicate with your members via email. You can use a mail merge for many reasons including, but not limited to:  Welcoming them as new members  Welcoming them back after reinstatement  Thanking them for renewing their membership  Alerting them about their renewal date  Contacting them after their membership lapses

Very simply, a mail merge allows you to send your members a personalized e- mail as though they are the only person receiving the e-mail, instead of one mass email. Each separate member receives an email where they are the only recipient in “To:” line and the body of the e-mail is personalized to reflect their information (name, renewal date, website login, etc.) The effect is created that you are sending that email specifically to that member and allows for a better connection with the member.

There are three main components to completing a mail merge: 1. Creating your contact database a. Having the correct database of information is key when completing the merge, and is often the most time consuming task of all three, mainly because each mail merge will use a different set of contacts.

2. Creating your message a. Once you create your master template for your mail merges, save these files for future use. There is no need to recreate this message each time you send a renewal notice, thank you note, etc. unless you want to vary it up year to year so members are not getting the same note twice.

3. Completing the mail merge in Outlook

Now that we know the basic overview…let’s try it out!

Scenario: It is April 1, 2011. You want to contact all members whose renewal date (paid_thru date) is April 30, 2011 and remind them that their renewal date is coming up.

Creating your contact database 1. Log in to the NASW Chapter Extranet on the NASW National website (http://chapters.socialworkers.org)

2. Click “Request for Mass E-mails Form” on the left navigation bar.

of 8 3. Fill out the Request for Mass E-Mails Form with the following information: a. Select Full Membership for Branch

b. Leave Congressional Districts, State Senate Districts, Member Type, and Sections alone – do not select any choices.

c. Make sure Membership Status is set to “A-Active”. This you would change if you were looking to get email addresses of members who had lapsed during a period of time.

d. Leave Join Date From and To blank.

e. Change Paid thru From section to 4/1/2011 and To section to 4/30/2011. Ensure that you put the From as the first day of the month and To as the last day of the month, otherwise the form will not generate any email addresses.

f. Enter your name as the person requesting data, and put in a catchy subject line for the email going out.

4. Do not check any of the boxes below the red divider and click “Generate Email List” on the bottom of the page.

of 8 5. On the page that loads (it may take a few minutes), you will see a list of email addresses. Ignore the list and click the button that says “Download Email List”.

6. When the file downloads, open the file using Microsoft Excel. You will notice that there are three columns: First Name, Last Name, and Email. To personalize renewal emails to include their renewal date, we need to add a column for Date. Enter the word Date in the top row of column D, and enter the renewal date for the members (all will be 4/30/2011) in column D, as shown in the picture below.

7. Since you are sending a personalized email, go through the first name column and last name column and ensure all first and last names are correctly formatted (look at ‘maxine’ in the picture below – that should be changed to ‘Maxine’ before saving changes).

8. Save the file – the contact database is completed!

Creating your message This part is simple – write the message you want to deliver, whether it is a renewal notice, thank you letter, welcome letter, etc.

The important piece to remember is that this message can be personalized using information found in the database. You can include information such as member ID, first name, last name, renewal date, etc. and make the message feel very warm to the member.

When crafting your message, distinguish the places where you want personalized information to be in some format, such as brackets << >> around the information, as shown in the image below. This makes it easier to spot where you will enter the field name when you complete the merge.

of 8 Completing the mail merge in Outlook 1. Open Microsoft Outlook and create a new email message.

2. Click in the body of the email message.

3. On the top toolbar of the new email message, click “Tools”, then “Letters & Mailings”, then “Mail Merge”.

4. On the right panel that appears, choose “E-mail messages” and then click Next to continue. NOTE: If you want to do a mail merge for welcome letters to print and send via US Mail, this function can be performed in Microsoft Word as well, just choose “Letters” instead of “E-mail messages”.

of 8 5. Choose “Use the current document” and click Next to continue.

6. Choose “Use an existing list”, then click “Browse” to select the contact database that you created earlier. If you are prompted to choose a Sheet from the database, click Sheet 1 and click OK.

7. A window will appear with all of the contents from the contact database you are going to use. Browse the list and ensure that all the contacts have a check on the very left side. If you do not want to include a certain contact, uncheck their record. When satisfied, click OK, and Next to continue.

of 8 8. Copy and paste the message you created earlier into the body of the email. Highlight the bracketed information that you want to personalize in the message.

9. Click “More items” on the right panel.

10.Choose “First Name” and click Insert. The bracketed information will change to a different bracket with the field “First Name” entered.

of 8 11.Repeat this process for any other personalized information your message includes (renewal date is also changed in this email). When finished, click Next to continue. 12.Immediately you should notice that the email message changes «First_Name» to the first name of the first contact in the database. The email message that is shown is the exact email that will be sent out, so proof the email for accurate details. If you wish to view other records, click the right or left arrows to change contacts. When done checking the messages for accuracy, click Next to continue.

13.Click “Electronic Mail” on the right panel. On the screen that appears, ensure the word “Email” is in the To: line (this is the email field from the contact database) and enter your subject line for the email message. Choose “All” under send records and click OK.

of 8 14. That’s it! Outlook is sending your personalized message out and your mail merge is complete!

Any questions? Contact Vince Coraci, Director of Member Services & Development, at 517-487-1548, ext. 15 or [email protected]