The monumental mail merge

Hi everyone,

I am now at the halfway mark of my placement at the City of Joondalup, how fast is the time going?

I’ve seen and learnt about a lot of cool things so far, as well as getting a lot of practical tips for my PR toolbox. If I were to single out one of the most useful tools I’ve learnt along the way I’d have to say at the top of my “handy things to know” list is the incredible Mail Merge on word. I’m not sure if any of you reading my blog has heard of it (or used it) but it’s definitely a tool I’ll be adding to my skill kit and probably my resume!

For those of you who don’t know what Mail Merge is, I’ll explain it. It’s a function on Microsoft Word under the Mailings tab which allows you to enter multiple details into one document and then send those to different people with their own personal details on it. For example, if you were sending 500 invitations and wanted to include the invitees name on the invite you would only need to do one invitation, enter a field i.e. and then link that document to your database list (on excel). The application will make 500 individualised invitations. It doesn’t only work for invites either; it also works for table place cards, letters, labels and envelopes (basically anything).

While I was spending some time with the Civic Functions Officer during my placement last week she mentioned mail merge and couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of it. It’s a very integral part of her event planning process, because she has a very full role with all of the civic function that she organises. Some of the functions include Australian Citizenship ceremonies, dinners for sporting/recreational/community clubs in the area and corporate functions. So you could image that she doesn’t have the time to individually type the names onto the amount of invitations she sends out.

I was amazed when she showed me what mail merge was and how easy it was to use- all those hours of individually addressing letters and envelopes could have been minutes. This is one “tip of the trade” that should be taught during the PR techniques unit.

I thought I would share this golden piece of information with you in case no one else had heard of it as well. It’s definitely something you should use if you are doing any events. If you are going to play around with it, or want to learn more, I’ve found this tutorial pretty helpful. I hope you all benefit from this knowledge as much as I did.

Katie.