 |  | merge mail with a customer database |  | | By Kevin Savetz | | (8/12/02) |
Businesses small and large face the ongoing challenge of keeping in touch with customers. Letters, whether e-mail or old-fashioned postal mail, make for an unobtrusive means of making contact while holding the annoyance factor down. But how do you manage sending mail to a large customer base? Well look at how to use Easy Mail Plus to create personalized letters for delivery via the post office or e-mail.
Import your customers
First, import your customer database into Easy Mail Plus. Create a new database by pressing the Database tab and choosing New Database from the File menu. Give the database a name and press OK.
If you want to import names and addresses from Outlook, choose Import From Outlook from the File menu and Easy Mail Plus will display your contact names. You can import all of them by pressing the Import All button, or import individual entries by highlighting a name and pressing the Import Selected button.
If your contact list is stored in an application other than Outlook, there are a few extra steps to import it. If the application has an export command, use it to save your data as a tab-delimited or comma-delimited file. Then, in Easy Mail Plus, open the File menu and choose "Import data from file." Point it to the export data file you just created. Now tell Easy Mail Plus which field is which: youll see the first entry of the database and a column of blank fields. Drag each datum to its appropriate field, such as first name to the First Name field, and so on. When youre done, press Import.
Create your letter
Now, its time to create your letter. Press the Documents tab to begin composing from scratch. If you would rather import an RTF or text-format letter that youve already written, choose Open from the File menu and select that file. The heart of Easy Mails document processor is its ability to personalize letters. When you want to include data from the contacts database, choose Insert Field from the Mail Merge menu. Select the datum that you want to appear at that point in the text and press the Insert Selected Field button.
When your letter is finished, press the Spell Check button to check your work, then choose Print List from the Mail Merge menu to print a copy of the letter for everyone in your database. If you would rather send your letter via e-mail, choose E-mail from the File menu.
Make a special delivery
Finally, youll need a way to deliver those letters. Press the Envelopes tab to print recipients addresses directly on envelopes, or the Labels tab to print on sticky labels. Select the size and shape of your envelopes or labels. Check any of the Logo, Return, or Barcode check boxes to indicate which information should appear on your envelopes or labels. Press the Return button and enter your return address; then press the Logo button and choose an accompanying graphic, if desired. Lastly, press the Print List button to print envelopes or labels for everyone in your contacts database.
Now your letter is almost ready to go; but remember, Easy Mail Plus leaves the hardest part to you. Stuffing envelopes, sealing them, and going to the post office are tasks that PC software cant help you with.
Kevin Savetz, a frequent contributor to CNET Download.com, has been a freelance computer technology writer for 10 years.
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