Word Mail Merge as Mass E-mail Marketing Services

Mail Merge with Excel and Word

This is a Built in Option in Microsoft Word for sending personalized mails or letters, to a mass mailing list.

If you have Microsoft Word and Outlook with a valid email account, then Mail merge option can transform them as free software to send mass emails without showing addresses to everyone. This option can be used in following example scenarios:

• Email Marketings: When Your business or products has a very huge Customer or Fan bases that opt in for email Marketing & you might want to update the customers about the special offers, product upgrades & updates. Guess this option will beat any of the available cheap email marketing services.

• Newsletter Solution: When you have to send daily newsletter email to every customer subscribed in your website or publishing media or in case if you are sending out a meeting/learning course invitation.

• Email Blast: This is used by spammers & marketing firms to send promotional offers & other mails to a really huge audience. Modern email accounts these days have the capabilities to identify these kind of spam mails.

• Personal Invitations: Consider, you want to send out Invitation to all your Friends. To list a few examples, it could be a Party, Marriage, Function, Special Event or Meeting, Coaching Class, party or special day wishes etc.,. This option can be used instead of using any mass email services.

Related: How to send Personalized Outlook Email From Excel?

How to send mass Email without showing addresses?

Well, I guess it explains well that Mail Merge has a huge usage in modern computer world. Now, let’s learn how to implement it with just MS Office products & a valid Email Account (POP3/IMAP/SMTP services).

We have to follow the below 4 steps to complete a Mail Merge.

1. Prepare Mailing list in Excel.
2. Import Mailing list to Word.
3. Prepare Email or Document Template.
4. Merge Mailing list data with document template and Send Email.

Let’s assume we want to send a personalized Happy New Year wishes to around 100 members in your team, like

Document Sample #1:
Hi «Recipient_Name»
Wish you a Happy New Year Ahead. Have a Wonderful year ahead.
Warm Regards,
«Your_Name»

It would be really tough to replace <Recipient_Name> with actual 100 names and send mail individually.

Microsoft Word Mail Merge option would solve this issue and save lot of your time.

1. Open a new Excel workbook:
   1. Prepare the Mailing list which has your Friends contact detail like Reciep_Name, Address (If you are planning to send a Postal Wish), Phone number(if required), Email Address etc.,
   2. Collect recipient details in this Excel and save it in a folder. With this the first step is completed.
2. Create a Word Document:
   1. Go to Menu -> Mailings & click the option “Start Mail Merge”. It will have options like ‘Letters’, ‘E-mail messages’, ‘Envelopes’ etc., Click on Email Messages.
   2. Adjacent to “Start Mail Merge”, there is option “Select Recipients”. Click on this option, choose “Use Existing List” & select the Mailing list created in step #1.
   3. Now, it will display a pop window requesting to “Select Table”. Click ‘Option’ and choose ‘Table’ & ‘Systems Tables’ and click ‘Ok’.
   4. Now the popup will display all tabs present in Imported Excel. Choose ‘Sheet1$’. Step #2 is completed with this.
3. Prepare Template: We have the Mailing list imported to Word. All you have to do now is to create a mailing Template with Variables that can be replaced. It is a bit confusing step. Follow below listed steps:
   1. Type the content of the Mail/Newsletter/Invitation as in Document Sample #1 above.
   2. Wherever you have to replace the Recipient detail, place your cursor (Example: <<Recipient_Name>>), from menu choose ‘Insert Merge Field’ and choose appropriate field.
4. Verify & Send Email: Before completing the final step, click on ‘Preview Results’ option in menu and validate that data from excel are replaced correctly in the placeholders ‘<< >>’. Once validation is satisfactory, click on ‘Finish & Merge’ -> ‘Send Email Messages’.

Also Read: How to Archive Outlook Email?

Ensure MS Outlook is running in your machine during this process. An Outlook security pop up window will appear asking for permission to send mass email from Word. Select number of minutes according to volume of your personal or business mailing list & choose ‘OK’. Thus without any paid mass emailing services, built in Mail Merge will start to send emails to all users in your email marketings list.