How to Mail Merge in Google Docs?

Are you utilizing everything Google Docs has to offer? Are you checking out the options on how to send mail merge with Google docs? There are several options wherein you can make use of the best mail merge. 

What is Mail Merge?

A Mail Merge is a tool that can be used in personalising your forms or emails, so that you can send personalised emails to several users at once. The mail merge functionality will import the data from different sources and makes use of this information given. One of the common options primarily used is a combination of Gmail and Google Sheets for creating mail merge documents. 

The mail merge sources the info such as name, address, and similar other data from the different sources and prepares the message for the individual users. Mail merge is ideally used in scenarios such as forms and highly personalized emails. 

Imagine a situation where you are planning to send a specific offer to your clients. Instead of sending a generic email, you would want to send an email with a little personalisation and customisation. In essence, you could have the email consist of the individual clients’ names and addresses (along with other important data, as the case may be). This is an area where Mail merge can come quite handy. 

How Does Mail Merge Work?

A mail merge would need a specific tool or software for achieving a better deal of efficiency and performance. You can pick any good software tool for mail merge based on your individual preferences. 

A Mail merge system, including the Gmail mail merge functionality, will need you to have two special components for achieving optimal performance. You will need a Template file that contains the document you want to send and a Data file which includes the personalized information such as names and addresses. 

The template file consists of your complete email content and will have separate placeholders for personal details such as names and addresses. These will be sourced from the data file when sending mail merge content to the recipients. 

The data file, as you might have guessed right, is the file that contains the data for the placeholders in the template file. The data file can be in the form of an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheets. 

How to Create a Mail Merge in Google Docs?

You can create a mail merge data file with Google Sheets and a template file in Google Docs. However, the process can be quite a time consuming and can make you enter the details manually. This can also give rise to a few human errors and can make your mail merged emails, and communications look slightly awkward.

Now, Google Docs does not offer you the functionality of mail merge as such. You can get the feature on Google Sheets but will need to add more apps to your product. Moreover, since you cannot preview each of the emails you send, you may end up sending strange-looking emails to the recipients. You can even check out a few of the options to use Gmail mail merge with Google Docs! 

This is where using a tool such as GMass can come to your rescue. The tool simply automates the process and simplifies it. The advanced mail merge functionality that forms part of the tools like GMass can prove to be quite handy when compared to the features available by default on MS Word or Google Sheets. One of the prime features that make these third-party tools excellent options can be that they are not necessarily designed to work with marketers and digital experts. It can also be used by other individuals, social organizations, and everyone alike. As long as you have a Google account, you can send those personalised messages without hassles. 

Why Use Third-Party Tools for Mail Merge?

Using mail merge functionality as the default way of creating mail merge can involve creating a Google Apps Script. This can be a difficult task in its own right. Using a third-party tool can prove to be quite useful and practical as it does not need you to create a script or master the art of creating the script. 

A few of the advantages of using the tool can include: 

The Closing Thoughts

The default mail merge functionality can be something you will find handy but comes with a huge set of limitations. However, using a third-party tool for mail merging can prove to be extremely useful. It can be your best bet for an advanced email campaign and thus assist you to maximise your conversion rates. 

Using the Chrome add-on for the tools such as GMass can definitely prove to be a great option in improving your mail marketing and degree of performance.