Single or Mass E-Mail Merge in RealeSeller™
 
How to perform an E-Mail document Merge:
First, select a Prospect, or Agent folder.  You can use the default Outlook Contacts folder items if you want to. Since Outlook does not recognize certain aspects of special modifications like Web Folders, you must first turn off the RealeSeller view.  Depending on which version of Outlook you are running, some of the views might look a little different.  The same steps are used no matter what version you are using.  Depending on your version of Outlook, you should see something similar to this:

 
Once you hide the RealeSeller view, you will need to select the contacts you want to use.  Depending on your choice of default Outlook view, you should see something like this:


If you are going to email a document everyone, you can skip this step and move to the next step.  If you are going to send an email to a select group of your prospects, select the first prospect in your list.  Next, without clicking any prospects, scroll or move to the last prospect in a group you want to select.  Press the Shift button and hold it down.  Now, using the left mouse button, click the last prospect in the group.  All prospects in between the two clicks will be selected.  Something similar to the image below:

Tip:  You can select random prospects by pressing and holding the Ctrl key and then clicking any prospect.  If the prospect has already been selected, this will unselect that one prospect.  This is an easy way to select any group of prospects at random.

Next, select Tools, Mail Merge... from your menu bar.  Like this:

Next, the below window will appear.  Select the choice between All contacts in current view or Only selected contacts (1).  Next, select All contact fields (2) (Doing this is easier and consumes less time).  At this point you need to select a document file (3).  You should have one created before doing this email merge.  Now, select Form Letters (4) for the Document type and E-mail (5) from the Merge to: drop down list. Now, add the text for the subject you want displayed in the Message subject line (6) text box.  At this point you are finished with this part, press the OK button (7).



Now the Word document you selected in the last window will be displayed.  It should look something like the below image.  If you have not already done so, you can insert various contact field names into your document. In the sample below we selected Insert Word Field (1) and added the first name field (2) to the document. Next, you can test the fields you replaced by pressing the View Merged Data (3) button.  Once you are satisfied that the fields will be inserted the way you want, move on to the next step.



Now you are ready to email your selected contacts so press the indicated button (see red arrow) in the below image, Merge to E-Mail to continue.

 

Next, a small window will appear like the one below.  First, since this is an email merge, Email should be selected in the first box indicated by the (1).  Next, verify your Subject line (2).  Next, you can choose either Plain text or HTML for your email (3).  If there are graphics in your document, you should send the email in HTML format.  Using the Plain text format will remove all graphics, special fonts, colors, etc. from your document.  Now, you should choose All (4) using the method of contact selection we chose in the beginning of this example.  Selecting All in this case means all selected contacts or all contacts and depends on your choice in the Mail Merge Contacts window above.


All that is left to do is send the email.  Press the OK button (5) when you are ready to send.  You have now emailed a merged document.  The Word document is converted to HTML format if you chose that format in the above window.  All graphic images are automatically converted and attached when the document is sent. The person receiving the email will see the images (if any) and will place them in your email when it is displayed.  The emailed document should look very similar to the original.  There are usually some differences, but you can adjust for that by modifying the document until the email looks the way you expect it to.

Note:  You can use this same method to email any regular contacts you might have in Outlook.  At the time this document was being created we had been working on a shorter method using the RealeSeller view.  It should be a lot easier and much faster when it is finished.