Mail merge is a feature that enables you to create personalized letters for as many recipients as possible simultaneously using a batch process. It is cumbersome and painful to have to do the same thing repeatedly when you have alternatives. If you are in a managerial position or any situation where you often have to send letters to various people at the same time, this feature will prove invaluable when it comes to saving you time, money, and energy.
The Mail Merge Process
The mail merge process starts with determining the kind of document you are dealing with. Mail merge works with various forms of official documents like letters, envelops, emails, directories, invoices, or just plain labels.
Next, you identify the recipients of your correspondence. Chron.com suggests that the power of mail merge is in predetermining the recipients of a letter or email. The feature enables you to use a list, excel file, or even a database file to choose the recipients of your message. You can create the file on the fly, or you can create it in advance in Word, Excel, Access, or any other application that is compatible with your mail merge software.
After determining the recipients of the message you want to send, you can create and even customize the letter or message specifically for each recipient. If you are sending the same thing to all recipients, then there is no need for customization.
Once you’ve selected your recipients and created your message or letter, you can preview everything to ensure that they are what you intended. If everything looks good, you can start the batch processing, and the software will instantly create documents just as you designed.
According to GMass, the thing you’ll appreciate most about mail merge is the fact that you get to keep your recipient list and only refine it when needed. You can even exclude some recipients from certain letters or emails. You can add, delete, or change the details of the recipients as necessary.
Main Advantages of Mail Merge
Save Time – The first time you set up the prerequisites (recipients, letter body, email body, etc.) of the mail merge process is the only moment that may take a while. Afterward, sending messages will be quick because you’ll already have a source for your recipients. Sending letters or addressing envelopes will only be a matter of starting the mail merge process; pointing the software to the recipient source; edit the message, email, or a few addresses; and let the feature do its thing.
Save energy – When you save time, you are also saving energy. If you were to send letters or emails the old-fashioned way of addressing your recipients one at a time, regardless of how fast the email technology is and how easy word processing applications enable you to create letters, the process would still take a lot of effort on your part. Mail merge takes away all that unnecessary effort and allows you to let the software do the heavy lifting.
Save Money – According to Wikipedia, mail merge enables you to save money if you pre-sort zip codes and grouping by postal discount specifications.
Formatting – Mail merge retains the format you set up in your word processing software.
Conditions – The feature is flexible in that if you want to leave out some recipients from a particular letter or email, you can. Also, remember that you can edit the source of your recipients in case of any new updates or developments regarding their address details.
Mail merge is a neat feature for sending letters and emails. You don’t need to memorize the process because mail merge software often has a wizard that will walk you through the necessary steps to send your message. It’s a useful simple intuitive feature if you frequently deal with letters, emails, or similar business correspondence.
Mail merge is something I’ve used a ton for physical letters, but never had considered as an option for emails! I’m going to have to think about how this can help my sales funnel.
GMass is so helpful in terms of pre scheduling and staying on top of email marketing.