How to Prepare Your Initial Welcome Letter for Snail Mail

The first step in creating your Welcome Letter is preparing the data from your member list so that it can be downloaded to a csv file. 

Starting at the dashboard go to Membership > Accounts. Then click the blue Manage Filter button on the Account screen. Here, you’ll want to select all the account types that you need to contact as well as you'll filter for results that correspond to the merge tags you see in our sample letter. Typically that means you'll want the filter to pick up first names, last names, usernames and addresses to add to the templated letter. 

Now that you have compiled the data you need for the mail merge, click download CSV to export the data to an Excel spreadsheet. Note: in order for the merge tags to present correctly, please save the CSV file into a XLSX file before proceeding. 

Once your data has been exported, open a new blank Word doc and add or paste the content of your welcome letter into the body of the doc. Don’t forget to change any details on the sample letter to fit your club including the contact email, changing the website URL, the default password (located on your credential sheet) and the overall message if need be. 

Next select Mailings from the menu at the top of your Word doc. Under the Mailings menu, click Select Recipients > Use an Existing List. In the pop up window, select the Excel doc you just downloaded. Suggested items would be First Name, Last Name, Username. 

Click Insert Merge Fields in the Mailings menu and place your Merge Fields in the body of your letter where appropriate. 

Then click the Preview Results tab and if you're happy if the results, click the Finish and Merge tab and print!

For more information please visit these supporting documents below and check out Microsoft's online support library: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/

Set up a New Mail Merge List With Word: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/set-up-a-new-mail-merge-list-with-word-1a752328-b1b5-4865-96a2-e0acd561fe6f

Mail Merge Using An Excel Spreadsheet: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/mail-merge-using-an-excel-spreadsheet-858c7d7f-5cc0-4ba1-9a7b-0a948fa3d7d3