Perform mass mailings without third-party services

In this guide I tell how to automatically individualize mass mail content, including attachments  

Mail Merge method

If you send bulk emails to your customers or partners yourself, you need the  Mail Merge method to accomplish the task without third-party services. It helps personalize the mailing providing a personal appeal to each recipient and sending each email to a unique address.

Outlook users are familiar with the MS Word Mail Merge Wizard, a part of the Microsoft Office suite. It joins a mailing message with some personal recipient data, such as a greeting. And then sends emails to separate addresses automatically. For these mailings it uses existing Outlook contacts or an Excel spreadsheet.

However, there are many complaints about following shortages of Word mail merge:

• It doesn’t customize the email subject. 

• You can't send messages with CC or BCC. Each email can have only one recipient address.

• You do not view messages in full before sending, only the text.

• The main disadvantage is that you cannot add attachments to the mailing.

Meanwhile, emails containing attached documents make up a significant part of business mail. Often, it is necessary to send additional documents in commercial mailings: price lists, booklets, images. Here, you need to include attachment files in the mail merging process. The task becomes more complicated when every attachment varies for each email. Then, it's not enough to simply attach documents during the mail merging; they also need to be personalized.

Personalize any part of a mass mail message 

To solve this issue there are free tools such as Mail Merge with Attachments. 

Unlike the Word Mail Merge, this Outlook add-in personalizes the Subject, CC, and BCC, Attachments, and provides advanced sending options. 

Try also the advanced version of the ttool with a wide range of additional features.

Getting results

After completing the settings you need in the current mass mail campaign, you can proceed with the other setting tabs. 

Once the utility is set, you can send the mail immediately or save ready-to-send messages in the indicated Outlook folder to check everything, including attached items. If you are satisfied with the result, run the Mail Merge utility again to send emails at once or use the Redirect Messages Outlook add-on.