Oh you know you’re starting to think about it already. Doesn’t matter that it’s still hot outside and the sweat is rolling down your back. Soon you’ll hear holiday songs and decide it’s time to contact everyone with a card or letter. You, my friend, are on the verge of a mail merge. 

When you contact a client or customer with a personalized letter, it creates a connection between you that shows you see them as a person, not just a name on a list. But how do you get all those peoples’ names and addresses onto a personalized card or letter? The answer is mail merge. 

Mail merge is a feature of several word processing applications. It lets you create personalized documents. While the idea of creating a mail merge may seem intimidating, you can do it with a few simple steps. Just remember, a little planning on the way you enter your data will affect the look of the final product. Here’s the process in a nutshell.

Step 1: Create a data source (your address book, contacts, etc.) in one file.

• The data source can be from an Excel spreadsheet, MS Word table, or Outlook contacts.

• Each piece of data/information must be separated. Name, street, city, state, zip.

• The data source must have a header row to name the columns of information.

• Each record must be in its own row.

Step 2:  Next, make a document (letter, label, envelope, etc.) in another file.

Step 3:  In the document, substitute “Merge Fields” in place of names and addresses (or whatever information will come from the data source, the first file).

Example of a Table for a data source
Header Row	Name	Street	City, State Zip
Record 1	Joe Customer	12345 My Road	Yourtown, ST 12345
Record 2	Jane Client	56789 My Ave	Smalltown, St 12345

Step 4:  Execute the “Merge Command.” The word processing application automatically generates the letters by replacing the “Merge Fields” (name, address, etc.) into the second file which is the document. It then creates a third “merged document” which includes the appropriate data from the first file. 

Informational Links: 

About mail merge fields

Use Contacts for mail merge

Outlook as a data source

Word mail merge: A walk through the process

Word 2002 - Outlook contacts mail merge