Mail Merge Tips from Market-ace.com
Mail merge is a great tool for ensuring robust delivery to medium to small email DBs. It means you can get your promotional messages out to your newsletter base while still keeping your emails individualised.
While mail merge in Outlook could never match what you get from the big email software providers, it can be great to use if you’ve only got a small budget.
In our quick guide below, you’ll learn how to use Outlook to get your promo messages out to your user base in a quick, easy, and highly personalised way.
- Set up two Excel lists: one called TEST, and another called FINAL. Your final one has your full list of email addresses in it. Your lists should feature all the fields you want to carry in the body of the email (probably first name, email address), and save these.
- Open up Word, and type message that you will distribute to your members. Save your message.
- Go to this menu: Mailings > Start Mail Merge > E-mail Message
- Then, go to: Mailings >Select Recipients > Use Existing List > [then find your list from the navigation pop-up]
- Select which sheet(s) you want to use, and leave the “First row of data contains column headings” option ticked.
- Preview your list by selecting “Edit Recipient List”, to make sure you’re not emailing the wrong list.
- To insert any dynamic value from your list (most probably First Name or URL) simply click on a word in your email, and then click on Insert Mail Merge Field. This will create a field like this: «First_name»
- Click on Mailings > Preview Results to see how the merged email will appear. Use the forward/backward arrows to see each one.
- Click on Mailings >Auto Check for Errors, then select OK to the option ‘Complete the merge, pausing to report each error as it occurs.’
- Click on Mailings > Finish and Merge > Send E-mail Message
- DON’T FORGET TO TYPE YOUR SUBJECT LINE, keep it in HTML format, then select ALL. (Type in a small range of numbers if you first – if it’s a test list, this isn’t necessary).
- Click on OK. Your mails will be sent.
- Once you’ve sent to your TEST list, repeat stages 4 – 12 for your FINAL list.
GENERAL TIPS FOR SENDING PROMOS TO YOUR EMAIL BASE
- Always send to the TEST list first.
- Put your own details at the top of the FINAL mail list, and use the range “1 to 1” from step 11 above to test your final mail merge without risking sending messages with errors to your entire user base
- Large lists take a while to deliver, and will render your Outlook and Word unusable, so time it right.
- Including the word ‘newsletter’ in your subject line may leave your readers uninspired. Make your subject very catchy. E.g, “Up to 100 quid free at Jackpotjoy!”
- Make your mail-merged email very personal, and address your recipients by their first names or by their usernames if appropriate.
- You’ll get bombarded with non-delivered messages – beware of this. When you get them, save them into a folder in your inbox, and extract the undelivered addresses into an excel sheet. Removing these email addresses from your future list will ensure you get good deliverability
- Don’t send to a large list once, but try to break your list into smaller chunks and send the same email a few times to smaller numbers of recipients. ISPs don’t like it if you send big pulses of email data all at once.
- At the top of your email, include a hyperlink so that you the reader can go straight to the offer if they are interested.
- Keep your text in the email short and snappy to really get your readers’ attention.
- Don’t make your email too image-heavy. Remember that it is ultimately the text and the hyperlinks that will sell the message for you.
- Don’t forget to put your affiliate tracking link into all hyperlinks from within the email!
- All sent items from the mail merge go to your Sent folder in Outlook.
