{"id":558,"date":"2014-10-27T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salesfolk.com\/?p=558"},"modified":"2015-10-07T20:44:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T03:44:02","slug":"4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Ways Mail Merge Can Change Your Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How many times have you labored away sending the same email over and over again?<\/p>\n<p>Instead of copying and pasting the same content with minor tweaks over and over again, there\u2019s one simple tool that can save you hundreds if not thousands of laborious hours.<\/p>\n<p>This one invaluable tool can be used from everything from business to personal relationship management, and you can even use it to hire your next accountant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This life-changing tool is call mail merge.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not new, but still not enough people are utilizing it nearly enough.<\/p>\n<p>So the next time you need to send out a mass message to friends, family, business acquaintances or prospects, don\u2019t just Blind Copy and Carbon Copy emails to everyone or rely on MailChimp. These blast messages feel highly impersonal.<\/p>\n<p>The solution to all your problems is as simple as uploading a CSV and writing a quick template to send a mail merge that is both efficient and hyper-personalizable.<\/p>\n<p>Here are 4 ways that mail merge can change your life:<\/p>\n<h3>Mail Merge: The Automated Way to Get Dates or Make New Friends<\/h3>\n<p>Even things as personal as dating or inviting friends to dinner or a party can be executed with a mail merge. Your message can be as generic or personalized as you like depending on how many custom inserts you include. Oftentimes I\u2019ll even create a custom sentence in my mail merge CSV with a line like {<em>!Personal_Note<\/em>} that\u2019s specific to each person I\u2019m mailing. While that takes more time to create, it\u2019s still a lot faster than sending emails one at a time (even with copy and paste), but still more one-on-one than an obvious mass email to your friends.<\/p>\n<p>And if you\u2019re a serial dater trying to line up a bunch of dates you can even include custom inserts like {<em>!Location<\/em>} and {<em>!Time<\/em>} to line up your calendar for the next month. (haha) You probably want to include a custom sentence or phrase in here if you want to <em>actually<\/em> get the dates.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blinddate.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-562\" src=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blinddate.jpg\" alt=\"mail merge for blind date\" width=\"430\" height=\"242\" srcset=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blinddate.jpg 640w, https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blinddate-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Save time with Searching for The Best Service Provider or Products with Mass Email<\/h3>\n<p>Are you in the market for buying a new security system or looking for a lawyer?<\/p>\n<p>Do you find yourself asking service providers and businesses the same tedious questions over and over?<\/p>\n<p>Shopping around for reliable and competent service providers can be a time consuming nightmare. Finding accounting and law services online is easy, but contacting each of them individually means a lot of time online or on the phone chasing down potential providers. By using custom inserts like {<em>!Service_Name}<\/em>, you can reach hundreds of providers via email, and quickly ask all the right questions you need to locate your best options.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/online-shopping.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-564\" src=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/online-shopping.jpg\" alt=\"online shopping with mail merge\" width=\"276\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/online-shopping.jpg 450w, https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/online-shopping-300x217.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 276px) 100vw, 276px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Job Applications Is a Numbers Game: Why You Should Blast Out Personalized Applications &amp; Interview Requests<\/h3>\n<p>Searching and applying for jobs can feel like a full-time-job. Sending emails with every resume and a personal note is tedious and time consuming. You can simplify your application process by creating a basic introduction template that can be sent to multiple, potential employers at once.<\/p>\n<p>And you can even try my favorite tactic that got me every job I&#8217;ve ever had: <strong>circumventing the job poster and directly cold emailing the CEO with an idea or question that demonstrates the value that you can offer the company.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mail merge allows you to create and categorize your email lists based on position or type of company you are applying to. Each list can be personalized with custom inserts like {<em>!Company<\/em>} and {<em>!Position<\/em>}, saving you the headache of addressing each email individually. Using relevant custom inserts inside your subject line and template will increase open and response rates that get you more interviews to land your dream job.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/village-people.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-566\" src=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/village-people.jpg\" alt=\"village people\" width=\"441\" height=\"296\" srcset=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/village-people.jpg 1924w, https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/village-people-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/village-people-1024x688.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Ramp Up your Outbound Sales with Regular Mail Merges<\/h3>\n<p>Cold emails are still the most effective way to generate qualified leads for closing deals, especially for B2B companies. Mail merges are an easy way to scale your outbound email process. Having a bigger list of prospects to email while also making sure you have a high open and response rate will keep your pipeline full of qualified leads. Custom inserts like {<em>!Competitor<\/em>}, {<em>!Industry<\/em>}, and other personalized firmographic information will help you create effective and scalable outbound sales processes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/fishing-superman.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-565\" src=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/fishing-superman.jpg\" alt=\"spear fish with mail merge\" width=\"321\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/fishing-superman.jpg 610w, https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/fishing-superman-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/fishing-superman-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 321px) 100vw, 321px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>4 Steps to Execute Your First Mail Merge<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>Create a spreadsheet in excel of your contacts with \u201cFirst Name,\u201d \u201cLast Name,\u201d \u201cEmail,\u201d and any other relevant fields you need from your custom inserts and save it as a CSV.<\/li>\n<li>Write a personalized email template with custom inserts. You can create these inserts by using code like {!First}, {{First}}, and other methods based on what program or tools you are using to do the mail merge.<\/li>\n<li>Send a test email to yourself in a CSV with your own information to check to make sure everything reads correctly.<\/li>\n<li>Send out the mail merge! (You can do this with a premium account of <a title=\"Yesware\" href=\"http:\/\/yesware.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Yesware<\/a>, <a title=\"Yet Another Mail Merge\" href=\"https:\/\/chrome.google.com\/webstore\/detail\/yet-another-mail-merge\/mgmgmhkohaenhokbdnlpcljckbhpbmef?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\">Google App\u2019s free plugin\/script, \u201cYet Another Mail Merge<\/a>, or <a title=\"Outreach.io\" href=\"http:\/\/outreach.io\/\" target=\"_blank\">Outreach.io<\/a> if you\u2019re doing more complicated campaigns where you would like to AB test heavily.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-558\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-558\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\"><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-558\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-reddit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-reddit sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=reddit\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Reddit\"><span>Reddit<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-pocket\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-pocket sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=pocket\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Pocket\"><span>Pocket<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-tumblr\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-tumblr sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=tumblr\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Tumblr\"><span>Tumblr<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email this to a friend\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How many times have you labored away sending the same email over and over again? Instead of copying and pasting the same content with minor tweaks over and over again, there\u2019s one simple tool that can save you hundreds if not thousands of laborious hours. This one invaluable tool can be used from everything from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-558\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-558\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\"><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-558\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-reddit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-reddit sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=reddit\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Reddit\"><span>Reddit<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-pocket\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-pocket sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=pocket\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Pocket\"><span>Pocket<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-tumblr\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-tumblr sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=tumblr\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Tumblr\"><span>Tumblr<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/4-ways-mail-merge-can-change-life\/?share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email this to a friend\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[152,153,151],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/village-people.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LFbr-90","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":569,"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}