How to do a mail merge in outlook email

A mail merge in Outlook! That's a great way to send personalized emails to multiple recipients with ease. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do a mail merge in Outlook:

Prerequisites:

  1. You have a list of recipients in a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file or an Excel spreadsheet.
  2. You have a template email in Outlook that you want to send to the recipients.

Step 1: Prepare your data

  1. Open your CSV file or Excel spreadsheet and make sure it has the following columns:
    • Email address (or any other column you want to use for personalization)
    • First name
    • Last name
    • Any other columns you want to use for personalization (e.g., company name, job title, etc.)
  2. Save your file as a CSV file (e.g., "recipients.csv").

Step 2: Create a new email in Outlook

  1. Open Outlook and create a new email by clicking on the "New Email" button in the Home tab.
  2. Write your email template, using placeholders for the personalization fields (e.g., {First Name}, {Last Name}, etc.). You can use the "Insert Placeholder" feature in Outlook to create these placeholders.

Step 3: Set up the mail merge

  1. Go to the "Mailings" tab in the ribbon.
  2. Click on "Select Recipients" and then "Use an existing list" (or "Use a new list" if you haven't created a list yet).
  3. Browse to your CSV file and select it.
  4. Click "Open" to import the list of recipients.

Step 4: Map the fields

  1. In the "Mailings" tab, click on "Match Fields" to map the fields in your CSV file to the placeholders in your email template.
  2. Select the corresponding field in your CSV file for each placeholder in your email template.

Step 5: Send the emails

  1. Click on "Send to All Recipients" to send the personalized emails to all recipients in your list.
  2. Outlook will replace the placeholders in your email template with the actual values from your CSV file and send the emails to each recipient.

Tips and Variations: