Using Microsoft Word to create a Personal URL letter

Using Microsoft Word to create a personalized URL letter

It's easy to create a direct-mail letter that utilizes personal URLs with Microsoft Word’s Data Merge feature. These directions are based of off Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac. So they might differ slightly depending on the version of Word that you are using.

  1. Create a Microsoft Excel file of your mailing list. The mailing list should contain all the mailing information for each one of your prospects. The first and last names should be on separate columns.
  2. Open Microsoft Word and create a new document.
  3. Open the “Data Merge Manager” tool box (Tools > Data Merge Manager).
  4. In the “Main Document” drop down, select Create > Form Letters.
  5. In the “Data Source” drop down, select Get Data > Open Data Source. Select your mailing list that you have saved as a Microsoft Excel document.
  6. Select the Entire Workbook, and click “OK.”
  7. The column titles in your mailing list are now visible in the “Merge Field” drop down.
  8. To create the Personal URL for each person on the mailing list, simply type your URL “www.yoursite.com/” and then drag the first name from the “Merge Field” drop down to just after your URL, followed by the last name.
  9. Place a period between the first and last name.
  10. To preview each Personal URL, simply click on the “Preview” drop down, and click the arrows to navigate through each mailing list recipient.