In this post, we look at how Gmail can be connected with Google Sheets and Docs to create a basic mail merge tool. Then, we explore a ready mail merge template on SafeMailer that can create these email automation workflows for you with a single click.
Table of content
1. Email is still an important channel
2. The big challenge: getting people to notice
3. Mail merge automation
4. Mail merge with Gmail and Google Sheets and Docs
5. Using mail merge for increased email deliverability
6. FAQs about mail merge with Google Sheets
Email is still an important channel
A few years ago many people expected social media, messaging and collaboration platforms to replace emails. The reality didn’t turn out that way, but far from it.
Email is pretty much alive and flourishing indeed. In fact, over the last few years social media and ad channels have become so expensive that online marketers are again turning to emails.
Moreover, emails are being heavily used in many other cases than just marketing – alerts for events/projects, invitations, daily/weekly reports, automated updates, newsletters, discount offers and the list goes on.
The big challenge: getting people to notice
But with so many emails being sent, it has become much more difficult to get someone to open and read your email. For marketing emails and cold sales emails that is often always the case.
Here are a few things that you can do to get people to notice your emails –
- Maintain good sender reputation so that your emails actually reach inbox instead of going to spam.
- Write subject lines that can grab attention.
- Keep your emails short, clear and to the point. Keep in mind that your readers are also busy people. If you write a very long email, it will most likely get ignored.
- Personalize your emails. Generic sounding emails are way more likely to get ignored.
- Avoid sending bulk emails. Instead send your emails in a staggered manner to avoid spam filters.
But even with all those tips, not everyone is going to read your emails. That’s why you need to reach out to more people, to at least get the required number of people to take notice.
So how do you send thousands of emails, while also personalizing them and making sure that they reach inbox? That’s where mail merge automation tools can help you.
Mail merge automation
Mail merge is basically an automated process for sending emails to a large list of people, while also personalizing those emails with basic details of the recipients.
With a basic mail merge tool, you can –
- Send the same email copy to thousands of recipients, via separate emails to each of them
- Personalize each of those emails
- Automate your email sending and save yourself a lot of time
A basic mail merge tool like this can be created by connecting your Gmail account to Google Sheets and Google Docs.
But, Google Drive has a few more powerful features that you can use to go beyond the basic functionalities and create powerful mail merge platform withing your Gmail account.
Mail merge with Gmail and Google Sheets and Docs
In a basic mail merge tool within Google Drive, spreadsheets are used for the recipient lists and their details for personalizing (name, company name etc). Google Docs can be used for email copy, which gets personalized at the time of sending the email. Gmail account is used for sending and managing the actual emails.
Now the important question – how do we connect all of them?
SafeMailer is a powerful platform to connect all your Google Drive apps with customized workflows. SafeMailer can connect your Gmail with Google sheets and docs for basic mail merge operation.
You can use SafeMailer for automating your cold email outreach. And because it uses Google drive to do all the heavy lifting, it presents a much cheaper and simpler alternative to tools like mailshake, woodpecker, outreach.io.
SafeMailer’s mail merge template uses –
- Multiple Google Sheets for managing mailing lists and campaigns
- Google Docs for email templates
- Gmail for sending emails
- Google Drive for managing all these interconnected tools
- Customized workflows for scheduling email campaigns (from the template)
- Google Analytics for tracking the opening and click rates for your emails
SafeMailer holds all these Google Drive apps together with email automation workflows which enable you to schedule your email campaigns and track their success rate from your dashboard.
This is a simple mail merge tool created by connecting Gmail to Google Sheets and Google Docs. But apart from that, it also works as a powerful cold email automation tool.
Using mail merge for increased email deliverability
Your sender score or sender reputation is a big factor in the success of your email campaigns. But when you send bulk emails to thousands of people at once, spam filters can identify this as spamming behavior and downgrade your sender reputation. So if you send many cold emails, you must keep your daily cold email volume below 100 emails per sender account.
Then how would you reach out to thousands of people?
You can do 3 things –
- Don’t send all your emails at once. You can send your campaign to thousands of people but in a staggered manner – distributed over a few weeks or even months.
- Use multiple email sending accounts
- Send your emails 2-3 minutes apart so that it would look like they were coming from a human sender
This way your emailing behavior looks like a human sender and becomes less likely to be classified as spam.
Bulk email marketing tools like Mailchimp will practically give you opening rates between 10-15%. But a cold email automation tool can increase that to 50-60% by simply changing the email sending pattern, increasing your email marketing productivity by 3-5 times!
FAQs about mail merge with Google Sheets:
Q: Can I use mail merge to send emails to a large group of recipients?
Yes, you can use mail merge to send emails to a large group of recipients. The mail merge process allows you to customize the content of each email by merging data from your Google Sheet into your email template.
Q: Can I customize the content of each email using mail merge?
Yes, you can customize the content of each email using mail merge. By using merge tags in your email template, you can insert specific data from your Google Sheet into your emails, such as the recipient’s name, address, or other personal details
Q: Can I include attachments in my mail merge emails?
Yes, you can include attachments in your mail merge emails. Most mail merge add-ons or extensions include the ability to attach files to your emails, such as PDFs, images, or other documents.
Q: Can I track the status of my mail merge emails?
Yes, many mail merge add-ons or extensions include tracking features that allow you to track the status of your mail merge emails. These features often include the ability to see who has opened your emails, clicked on links, and more.
Q: Are there any limitations or restrictions when using mail merge with Gmail and Google Sheets?
Yes, there may be some limitations or restrictions when using mail merge with Gmail and Google Sheets. These may include limits on the number of emails you can send per day, restrictions on the types of attachments you can include, and more. It’s important to check the specific limitations and restrictions of the mail merge add-on or extension you are using to ensure that you are using it within its capabilities.
Leave a Reply