If you want to send out the same email to multiple people, but want to personalize it for everybody, setting up a mail merge will save you a lot of time. Some email clients like Outlook have a built-in mail merge function, but if you want to use it with Gmail, you’ll have to download a Chrome extension.
A mail merge works by importing a spreadsheet and plugging in data from cells to fill in specific portions of an email, changing them for different recipients. You can start doing a mail merge by downloading the Mail Merge for Gmail add-on here.
Here's a video tutorial of how to use the extension:
After adding the extension, what you’ll want to do is create a spreadsheet in Google Drive, go to Add-ons > Mail Merge and Scheduler > Create Merge Template, which will turn your spreadsheet into a standard mail merge spreadsheet layout.
From here, you can do two things -- either fill in the data manually, or import information from your Google Contacts. If you're using Google Contacts, make sure you have your group of contacts ready and then in your spreadsheet, select Add-ons > Mail Merge and Scheduler > Import Google Contacts. Select the group you want and the information will automatically be added in the spreadsheet.
Once you have everything situated the way you want it, go back to the Mail Merge and Scheduler menu under Add-ons, and select Configure Mail Merge. This window allows you to select different options, fill in your own name, add cc's and bcc's, and select an email template. You can either write your own template or use a Gmail draft.
Here’s where it gets a little bit trickier. To let your Mail Merge add-on autofill data, you have to call for that data by using specific text calls. For example, to insert a name from the “First Name” column in your spreadsheet, type {{First Name}}, with those double wavy parentheses.
For example, if the first line of your email is:
Dear {{First Name}},
Every email you send will automatically replace “{{First Name}}” with the corresponding names you filled into the column labeled “First Name” on your spreadsheet.
When you’re all set with your email template, hit Run Mail Merge to send out the emails, or hit Only Create Drafts to save the emails as drafts that you can send later.
This Add-on is free, allowing you to send 50 emails per day, but there is a premium version for $29.99 and a domain license for $299, which increases your email limit up to 1,500 per day.