00:00:08hi everyone and welcome to a very
00:00:11special edition of ask Evan here with
00:00:14Maria today we’re going to answer a
00:00:16question from one of our readers anele
00:00:18anele says dear Evan I regularly get
00:00:22your newsletter and enjoy the great
00:00:24content can you give a demo of how you
00:00:26do the mail merge to send out
00:00:28newsletters please
00:00:29unfortunately Evan has switched from
00:00:32Outlook to Gmail therefore I will be
00:00:34doing the demo with you today
00:00:36however to make things a little bit more
00:00:38interesting instead of doing a
00:00:40newsletter we’re going to do a mail
00:00:42merge for my website party so what
00:00:46you’ll need is a word document an Excel
00:00:49document and obviously I’ll look to send
00:00:52your mail merge so the first thing I’m
00:00:54going to do is show you my invitation
00:00:56which is my word document and I’m going
00:01:00to read it for you and show you where
00:01:02we’re gonna place the placeholders which
00:01:04is going to be found in our Excel
00:01:07document sorry about that
00:01:10so it says dear and isblank so we’re
00:01:14going to place the first placeholder
00:01:15here you are cordially invited to
00:01:18Maria’s website party once you arrive at
00:01:21the party you will receive receive a
00:01:23nametag which will indicate your website
00:01:25so here’s going to be the second place
00:01:28holder once you receive your nametag
00:01:30please be seated in section blank so
00:01:34here we’re going to place the third
00:01:35place holder if you have any questions
00:01:38please feel free to contact me I’m
00:01:40looking forward to seeing you soon
00:01:42Cheers Maria so what I’m going to do now
00:01:45is show you my excel document which has
00:01:48our four placeholders I know in the word
00:01:51document I only said there was three but
00:01:53you always need to add an extra
00:01:55placeholder which is going to be the
00:01:57email address which you’re sending to
00:01:59the recipients receiving your mail merge
00:02:01so the first placeholder is going to be
00:02:05my guest
00:02:06then it’s the second one is website and
00:02:08the third is the section where my guests
00:02:11are going to be seated so once you have
00:02:14your Excel document ready you’re going
00:02:16to save it to a place where you’re not
00:02:18going to forget you’re going to need
00:02:20this right away so you’re going to save
00:02:21it and close it if you don’t close it
00:02:24it’s not going to work properly then
00:02:27we’re going to go to our word document
00:02:29and we’re going to open tools and go to
00:02:32mail merge manager I know for some of
00:02:35you that have windows instead of Mac it
00:02:37may look a little bit different but if
00:02:39you follow the steps you will have a
00:02:42successful mail merge I promise so the
00:02:46first step we’re gonna do is um click
00:02:49create new and since I already clicked
00:02:51on this before I’m gonna click on form
00:02:54letters
00:02:57step two is you’re going to get at your
00:02:59list and the list is your Excel list so
00:03:02you’re going to open data source and go
00:03:05to party invitation that’s the name of
00:03:07my Excel document and click OK here it’s
00:03:14going to ask you which sheet you want to
00:03:15use because you can have multiple sheets
00:03:17in Excel document choose the correct
00:03:19sheet and you want the entire worksheet
00:03:22cell range you’re going to click OK and
00:03:24then we’re going to go to step three
00:03:26where the four placeholders are shown so
00:03:29now what I’m going to do is make sure my
00:03:32spacing is correct because once you send
00:03:34a mail merge to I don’t know 50-100 a
00:03:38thousand people you want it to look
00:03:39really nice so I’m going to make sure my
00:03:41spacing as well and I’m going to add in
00:03:43the guest information here we’re going
00:03:47to add in the website information here
00:03:50and lastly there’s seed section also
00:03:56just a quick note here when you’re
00:03:58making your Excel document make sure you
00:04:01give each section of your placeholders a
00:04:03precise name for example I could have
00:04:07named guest whatever but it would have
00:04:11been harder for me to know which
00:04:12placeholder to place where depending on
00:04:15how many placeholders you’re going to be
00:04:17using when you send your mail merge so
00:04:20one time put in my three placeholders
00:04:22I’m going to go to step four
00:04:24and also remember we’re going to ignore
00:04:26step a placeholder number four which is
00:04:28the email address so number four use you
00:04:32have a filter option here it’s let’s say
00:04:35you have a party in your you invited 50
00:04:38people and you’re only sure above 40 the
00:04:41other ten you can click options and make
00:04:43sure that you keep them out of the mail
00:04:45merge the next option is the preview
00:04:49results this is my favorite if you click
00:04:51on the ABC button or view merge data you
00:04:55can actually see all your placeholders
00:04:57so it doesn’t just show the title it
00:04:59shows the actual information and then
00:05:02you can go through each of your
00:05:03recipients and make sure that the
00:05:05spacing is correct name is spell correct
00:05:08the correct website
00:05:09well if you’re happy with that you’re
00:05:11going to go to the last step and
00:05:14complete merge so you’re going to click
00:05:17on the button that says generate email
00:05:20messages and here is where we’re going
00:05:22to place our fourth and very last
00:05:24placeholder email because you want it to
00:05:27email them you’re going to put a subject
00:05:30my website ready and here you have an
00:05:37option to send as text attachment or
00:05:40HTML message I usually prefer to send it
00:05:44as an HTML message because I have
00:05:46pictures and banners in my signature and
00:05:49I want people to see it but if you don’t
00:05:52prefer the pictures to be shown you can
00:05:54always send it as a text so I’m going to
00:05:56choose HTML message here and then you’re
00:05:59going to click on mail merge to outbox
00:06:01so pretend you clicked on that if you go
00:06:04to your outbox and click on your send
00:06:07items you will see your list is slowly
00:06:09starting to build up and all the
00:06:11recipients on your list will be
00:06:13receiving the email so once you’re
00:06:18finished you can close this and your
00:06:20recipients will have their email and I
00:06:23hope you guys enjoyed the video and I
00:06:25hope it was very simple if you have any
00:06:28questions please please please feel free
00:06:30to comment below and I will respond to
00:06:33you as soon as I can thanks guys
00:06:42[Music]
00:06:44you
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