How to perform a E-Mail Merge

Mail Merging of data for email delivery is an extremely valuable tool in today's competitive environment and Intellect makes it fun and worry free to use. From promotional mailings to customer receipts and shipping documents nothing could be easier. It is a valuable tool ideally suited to handle mailings from 1 to 2,000 mail addressees. I would like to clearly set your expectations that this is NOT the tool to handle SPAM mailing lists - you will need specialized server based tools to properly deal with those higher volumes.

Step 1 - Compose a new message. Select Insert Field to place variables from your address book where you want to merge names, addresses, and other data to appear. Once you have composed your message you can click Save menu to keep a copy in your Drafts folder should you wish to reuse it again in the future.

Here is an example:

Step 2 - Insert some e-mail addresses in the message address To Field. Usually you would use the address book icon next to the To Field, but it is also perfectly fine to manually type in e-mail address. We cannot mail merge if the addressee is not in your address book but it is your choice whether you type it manually, or select a group of names from the address book.  To select names for the To: field, first click the To: button, then highlight the desired name or names, then click the To: button again.

Step 3 - Click the Merge to Template Button on the toolbar. The merge will visually occur in front of your eyes. Each addressee that you included in the To field will get their own customized letter. All of the letters will be placed for you into the Mailmerge Results folder so that you can review them prior to actually sending them out.

Step 4 - Mail Them. For many reasons you may not want the entire list mailed at once. You may drag a group messages from the Mailmerge Results folder to your Queued Messages folder to deliver in smaller batches, or you can select Send ALL or Send Selected from the right click menu.

Tips:

• Regardless of the number of e-mail addresses that you have added to the To Field, the recipients will not be able to see each others names.
• It's ok to experiment with merging because the results are not sent until you are ready. This way you can preview each message exactly as your customer or friends will see them. Potentially embarrassing things such as Dear Mr. LASTNAME can be avoided.
• Keep your original merge templates in your drafts folder so that you can use them again.
• Remember this is not a tool for creating or sending junk mail to tens of thousands of people. You need specialized tools for managing group mailings and group mailing lists management

This help article applies to Intellect 3