Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Using Mail Merge with Gmail

How to use Yet Another Mail Merge to create Gmail merged e-mails.



If you are like me, you use mail merge when you want to send the same e-mail out to multiple people, but personalize it with some information. For example, you may want to send an e-mail and personalize the name in each e-mail or you have a different word or phrase that needs to be in each e-mail.

 In Microsoft, it's easy to send a mail merge, but it's just as easy to send one via Google.  The first thing you'll need to do is set up a spreadsheet.  In the spreadsheet you need to have headers for each column for the mail merge to work well.  One of the columns needs to be e-mail.  The other columns can be any of the personalizations that you want to much (such as names).

Next, you'll need to go into Gmail and type up the e-mail you want to send and save it as a draft.  To enter personalizations you need to insert a placeholder.  For example, if you wanted to enter the person's name in the e-mail you'll have to use the word that you titled the column.  I probably would have called it name, so then I would find the spot where I want the person's name and type in <<name>>.  Basically you just put the column heading name in between the arrows (<< >>).

Lastly you'll need to install the add on called Yet Another Mail Merge. To do this you can click on this link which will bring you to the installation page. Once you have done this, go back to your spreadsheet and click on the Add-Ons menu and then Yet Another Mail Merge and run the add-on.

You are all set!  The add-on will sent the e-mails to the list of people in your spreadsheet.  It will also tell you who read it and who didn't and even let you target those people will follow-up e-mails.

If you have questions or want more clarification just let me know!

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