How to Send Bulk Personalised Emails in Outlook

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Sometimes you want to send personalised emails to a small group of people but don’t really want to go to the bother of setting up a list etc on your email marketing program – or you may not even have an email marketing program set up.

Well there is a solution – you can send personalised emails to your contacts using Word and Outlook.  However, when using this method, you should only send out to around no more than 50 contacts at a time otherwise your Internet Service Provider may think you are sending spam and block your account.

So if you want to know how to send personalised emails in Outlook, click the image below to watch the video or keep reading for instructions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Create a new document in Word and type out your content for the email and save as normal.
• Go to the Mailings tab in the toolbar at the top and click on Start Mail Merge and then choose Email Messages from the drop down menu.
• Now click on Select Recipients in the menu bar to select the contacts that you want to send the email to.  You can either type a new list, use an existing list or choose Outlook contacts.
• Now you have the recipient list set up, you need to insert the appropriate fields that you want to place in the email.  This would normally be the greeting line at the top.  Click on Greeting Line in the menu bar and set up the format that you want to use, eg full name, first name etc.  You can also choose what to enter if you don’t have the name for all your recipients.  Once everything is set up, click OK.  You will see the greeting line field appear.
• Now check that your fields are apppearing properly by clicking on Preview Results in the menu bar and then clicking the forward arrow button to go through the recipient list.  Check that all the names are appearing correctly.
• Once you are happy with everything then save the document.
• Click on Finish and Merge in the menu bar and select Send Email Messages.  Here you can add a subject line for your message, choose which format to send it in and whether you want to send it to everyone on the list or just a selection.
• Once everything is set up here then click OK and your email messages will be sent.  You can go into your Outlook profile and check your sent folder to ensure that the emails have gone out.

So that’s how to send personalised email messages using Word and Outlook.  I hope you found this blog useful and if you want more tips on how to save time in your business and work more productively, then download a copy of our guide “How to Organise Your Workload So There’s More Time for You“.

How to Flag an Email in Outlook

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If you’re sent an email message that requires some kind of action on your part, then you’ll want to flag that email to remind yourself to complete it.

Now you can do that by creating a separate task if you want to but it’s far easier to use the flag function on Outlook.  This enables you to add a reminder to the email itself so you can refer back to the message and the actions you need to take.

Here are the steps to take if you want to know how to flag an email in Outlook.

• Go to the inbox or appropriate email folder and you’ll see on the far right hand side, a column with the flag symbol next to each email message.
• To flag a message, just click on the flag symbol next to the appropriate email.  You’ll now see that the symbol is highlighted in red.
• To add a reminder date, right hand click on the flag symbol and select either one of the preset options or click on the Add reminder link to set a specific date and time.
• The email is now automatically added to your task list and you can view it by clicking on Tasks in the left-hand sidebar. Like other tasks, a reminder will pop up on the due date and time.
• An alarm bell symbol will also appear next to the email message to show you that a reminder has been added.
• Once the task has been completed, you can right hand click on the flag symbol and select either the Mark Complete or Clear Flag option.

Now you know how to flag an email in Outlook. Adding reminders to your emails is a great way to keep track of actions that you need to take on email messages that you receive.  By doing this, you will be aware of upcoming deadlines so you can plan your workload more effectively.
 

If you want to get more tips on how to manage your time and work effectively in your business, then download a copy of our guide “How to organise your workload so there’s more time for you“. This guide is packed full of time management tips as well as 10 online tools to help you work more productively. Click on the link to download the guide >> How to organise your workload
 

How to Export Contacts from Outlook

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If you use Outlook to manage your emails then you’ve probably got a lot of contacts stored in your contact folders.  However, what if you want to use this data in other programs such as email marketing or CRM systems?  How can you download this valuable information without having to physically input it into a database?

Well, it is actually very easy to export your contacts from Outlook into an Excel spreadsheet.  And by doing this, you will have it in a format that you can use in the future.

So here are the steps to export contacts from Outlook.

• Select the contact folder that you want to export and then click on ‘File’ in the main menu bar, and select ‘Import and Export’ from the drop down menu.

• Select ‘Export to a file’ in the list and click Next.

• Now choose the appropriate type of file – you want to select ‘Comma Separated Values (Windows)’.  A CSV file is similar to an Excel spreadsheet but without any formatting, and this format is the one you will need when uploading your contact data into other programs.

• Now select the contact folder that  you want to export and click Next.

• Give the exported file a name and choose where to save the file on your PC, and click Next again.

• Now click Finish to export the contact folder.

• Go to the folder where you saved the file and open it up to view your contacts.

So now you know how to export contacts from Outlook, you can use this CSV file in a variety of ways, including uploading to an email marketing or contact management program, or to Gmail if you’re switching email providers.

 

If you want to get more tips on how to manage your time and work effectively in your business, then download a copy of our guide “How to organise your workload so there’s more time for you“. This guide is packed full of time management tips as well as 10 online tools to help you work more productively. Click on the link to download the guide >> How to organise your workload