Are you managing a sizable list of clients or subscribers? Are you tired of sending emails individually? If yes, then you need to learn how to do a mail merge in Gmail. This tutorial will guide you through an easy step-by-step process on how to set up and execute a mail merge using Gmail and Google Sheets.
Step 1: Create a Gmail Draft
The first step in creating a mail merge is to compose a Gmail draft with placeholders for the data you want to merge. These placeholders are marked by enclosing the key within angular brackets. For example <FirstName>, and <LastName> could be used as placeholders for the recipients’ first and last names respectively.
Step 2: Prepare your Data in Google Sheets
The next step is to prepare a Google sheet with the data you wish to merge. Make sure to name the columns of your sheet with the exact placeholder name used in the Gmail draft. This eases the mapping process in the next step.
Step 3: Use Mail Merge Extension
Now, you need to add the Mail Merge for Gmail extension. This is a tool that will help you automate the tedious process of sending mass emails. After adding the extension to your Google account, a new menu item will appear in your Google Sheets toolbar named “Mail Merge”.
Step 4: Map the Columns
In this step, you link the Google Sheet columns to the placeholders in your Gmail draft. Click on the “Mail Merge” menu item in Google Sheets, then select “Start Mail Merge”. A sidebar will appear where you can select the draft you created in Gmail, and map the columns in your sheet to the placeholders.
Step 5: Execute the Mail Merge
Lastly, press the “Start Mail Merge” button in the side panel. The extension will start to loop through each row in the Google Sheet, replacing the placeholders in your Gmail draft with the corresponding data in each row before sending out the email.
Conclusion
And voila! You’ve just learned how to do a mail merge in Gmail. This simple technique can save you hours of tedious work and make your email marketing efforts more efficient. So why not give it a try?
