Mass Mailings Made Simple: This Do-It-Yourself Job Can Save an Office a Great Deal of Money

You want to tell 130 clients about several new professional services and send them updated fee schedules. You considered outsourcing the project to a direct-mail ad agency and found the setup alone for each variation of the letter was $65--way over your budget. Worry not. This is a lob your support staff should be able to handle after reading this article. We'll use Microsoft Office's Mail Merge function, which merges and integrates documents and data sources, to customize the letters. The final product will be 130 personal letters to each client's contact person. The setup takes just a few minutes. You have two options: Use the Mail Merge toolbar (exhibit 1, below)--a shortcut method that you'll probably prefer once you get the hang of it--or the wizard, which takes you through the process step-by-step. We'll demonstrate the process with the wizard so you can see how each step works.  To open the wizard, click on Tools, point to Letters and Mailing and click on Mail Merge. Your screen should resemble exhibit 2, page 49; however, yours obviously won't have the main document letter we prepared to illustrate the process. Notice that our letter lacks a contact person's name, an address or a salutation; we will add that later. Notice, too, that on the bottom right-hand side of the screen the wizard is ready for you to launch the first of six steps.  Step 1: Under Select document type, click on Letters because that is the type of document you want to create. Then click on Next: Starting document at the bottom right of the screen, to bring up the screen shown in exhibit 3, page 49.  Step 2: Under Select starting document, choose the setup for your letter from the following options: If you are starting from scratch, click on Use the current document. If you want to use a template, click on Start from a template. And if you already have a saved letter you want to open, edit and send, click on Start from existing document. Since you do not have a letter ready, select Use the current document and then compose your letter. Then click on Next: Select recipients (exhibit 4, page 49).  That moves you to step 3 and produces the screen shown in exhibit 5, page 49.  Step 3: Insert the addresses of your clients by choosing one of the first two options shown in exhibit 4, or you can type a new list (that process will be described later). In our example, since we have the information stored in an Access database table, we select Use an existing list under Select recipients and when we click on Browse to find the list, the Select Data Source screen appears (exhibit 6, below).  To browse through your folders for the address table, click on the down arrow next to My Data Sources. Find the desired database, click on it, and the Select Table dialog box appears (exhibit 7, below). It lists all the tables available in that database. We have highlighted the Client table.  If your client list is in Outlook, click Select from Outlook contacts (exhibit 8, page 50).  That evokes the Select Contact List Folder (exhibit 9. page 50).  If you wish to create a new list, click on Type a new list and Create (exhibit 10, page 50).  That brings up the New Address List screen (exhibit 11. …

Field of study: Business