Email mail merge: personalized emails using Excel - Word & Outlook

Posted on:  12/03/2020
Email mail merge: personalized emails using Excel - Word & Outlook

Need to send personalized emails to individuals all at one time? That is called an "Email Mail Merge." I'm going to use Excel, Word, and Outlook - part of Microsoft 365 - to create and send bulk emails out. The order these apps are used would be Excel, then Word, and finally, Outlook.

  • Excel - stores the data of individuals you want to send a personalized email
  • Word - where all Mail Merges happen, including an Email mail merge
  • Outlook - Sends emails to individuals.

If you had 100 people in Excel, after setting up the mail merge in Word, you should end up with 100 Sent items in Outlook's Sent folder.

I keep my list of individuals in an Excel spreadsheet. Your header row or fields must be in row 1 of Excel. I may need the following fields: title, first name, last name, department, company, job title, and other fields. The one field you MUST have that I didn't list was the person's email address.

Word's role in Mail Merges

I'm focusing on email mail merges in this article but Word is involved in all mail merges. If you are doing a letter mail merge, envelopes, lables, or email, Word is the application that handles the mail merge.

YouTube Video on email mail merge

Steps used in Microsoft Word for email mail merge

  1. Start a blank document
  2. Click the Mailings tab
  3. Click Start Mail Merge 1:55 in the video
  4. Click E-mail messages
  5. Click Select Recipients then select Use an existing list
  6. Find your Excel file and click the correct tab or table in the file
  7. Select Edit Recipients list
  8. Sort or filter if you want and remove blanks 3:40
  9. Type the message in Word, and Insert Merge Fields 4:30 in the video
  10. Preview results 5:35 in the video
  11. Click Finish & Merge
  12. Check Outlook sent to make sure the emails were sent out.

 

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Chris Menard

Chris Menard is a Microsoft Trainer (MCT) and works as a full-time Trainer at BakerHostetler - one of the largest law firms in the US. Chris runs a YouTube channel with 900+ technology videos that cover various tools such as Excel, Word, Zoom, Teams, Gmail, Copilot, Google Calendar, and Outlook. To date, the channel has helped over 20 million viewers. Menard also does 2 to 3 public speaking events yearly, presenting at the Administrative Professional Conference (APC), the EA Ignite Conference, the University of Georgia, and CPA conferences. You can connect with him on LinkedIn at https://chrismenardtraining.com/linkedin or watch his videos on YouTube at https://chrismenardtraining.com/youtube.

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