Why sending bulk emails is valuable
There are so many reasons why you may want to send the exact same email
to multiple recipients. So in this video, I'm going to share with you two methods
in which you can do so right here within Gmail. Hello, everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And perhaps the number one reason to send one email to multiple recipients is so that you can save time.
Rather than having to write out that message over and over again, or copy and paste the same message here, why don't we just write one message and then send it out to 50, 100, or maybe even 1,000 recipients at once?
Well, here within Gmail, I've started to craft a particular email. And in this example, perhaps I'm promoting a sales event, or a special deal. I've got the subject line and I've got the body of the email. But let's come up to the Recipients section here.
Send email with Blind Carbon Copy
You're familiar with the two field. You're probably using that most frequently. And you might be familiar with the CC field, which stands for carbon copy. But what you might not be as familiar with is the BCC field, which stands for blind carbon copy.
The difference with BCC is that everyone included in the BCC line will not see anyone else in the BCC line. So they'll receive the email and feel as if it was created just for them.
Now, remember, anyone in the BCC line will see if you include someone in either the two or the CC line. So for our example, we're going to leave those blank and we're just going to include names here in the BCC field.
Now, you could go ahead and enter in those email addresses one at a time. But if we're dealing with a lot of addresses, you're probably going to want to make use of copy and paste. Here, I already have a spreadsheet. And I'm just going to go ahead and copy these email addresses here,
and then I'm going to come back to my message. And I'm going to paste them in the BCC file. So here you can see all of the names and all of the email addresses listed here. And, remember, even though I have roughly 30 addresses here on the receiving end, they're going to have only their name present.
They're not going to see anyone else because I've included them here within that BCC field. Now, the one thing that you're going to want to note before hitting that Send button is double checking the body of that message. One of the downsides of using the BCC line within Gmail is
that we can't customize any parts of the message. So, for example, I can't say, "Hi, Leota," or, "Hi, Sage," because everyone would see that on their end. I have to leave it at Hi, comma.
And I can't say anything specific about their company, maybe the city or the state that they live in, because, otherwise, everyone would receive that within the message. So you will need to keep your message somewhat generic.
But at this stage, I'm going to go ahead and hit Send. And, now, that message has been sent
to all of those addresses. Now, just to show you what this looks like on the receiving end, here is the message from my test account. Here's that "Special Sales Event Just For You." So I'm going to open up this email.
I can see who it's from, but you can see that there's no one else listed here. Even though there were 33 listed on that BCC line,
it says if this message was sent just to me. So you can be rest assured that you can send a bulk email to many recipients without disclosing those other email addresses.
Gmail plus Google Sheet template method
But what if we want a simpler way to do this and have the ability to add some personalization? Well, in that case, we're going to want to make use of a Mail Merge feature.
Now, if you type in Gmail Mail Merge, the number one result will be this one here from Google itself. Now I could spend the rest of the video walking you through this particular solution, but I won't. And here's why. It's not simple.
It's not easy. And there's actually a lot of room for error, which is the last thing I want you to do
when you're sending out emails to perhaps hundreds of recipients. At the very top, it says that this is for a beginner level, but coding level beginner. Yes, if you have a background in coding or software development, this is fairly straightforward.
But there is still too much room for error.
Customize your bulk emails with mail merge
So instead, we're going to take advantage of the Right Inbox Gmail extension.
Now I've talked about Right Inbox in the past because it's so much more than just a mail merge feature. But I'm going to show you just how easy it is to set up a mail merge and track and personalize those messages right from within your Gmail account.
So with the Right Inbox extension installed, I now have access to this Mail Merge button, which appears directly above my Compose button. So rather than starting my message here, I'm actually going to start by selecting Mail Merge.
And here you can see some of the other mail merge campaigns which I've either set up in advance or one that is currently running and has started to send a number of those emails. To get started, all we need to do is select this Create Campaign button.
And our first step is to choose how we want to add our email recipients. Now, if you only have a small handful, maybe a dozen or fewer, you may want to add them manually and just type them in.
However, for anything larger, it might be more efficient for you to upload a CSV file. So in this case, I'm going to go ahead and upload that same file which I copied from in the first example. Now, when it comes to the contents of your file, you can add as much or as little detail as necessarily.
Yes, of course, your file must contain an email column. However, in this case, you'll notice, I've also included the first name, last name, and the name of the company in which they are associated with.
This is actually quite helpful because I'm going to start to use these other fields as a part of my customization. So back within Gmail, all I need to do is go and select my specific CSV file.
How to add merged fields to your email message
In this case, I'm going to upload it and say Upload CSV. And now I'm ready to start creating my email. Now, you'll see that the editor looks a little bit different but we still have all of the features and functions of a regular Gmail message, including indentation, bold, italic, and even the ability to insert images and links.
So on the subject line, maybe this is a "Special Sales Event," right? That's going to be the title of my line here. And when it comes to the body, this is where we get to personalize specific aspects.
So rather than just saying, "Hi," isn't it a lot more personable if I say, Hi, first name, such as, "Hi, Scott," or, "Hi, Charlene," for example. By adding this Insert Merge Field, it's going to include their specific name.
And here you can see the other three headers. First, last, and company name just as you saw in my previous CSV file.
Now down below, I can say something, like maybe, "We are looking forward to serving," and here I'm going to insert the company name, "serving company name in 2023," or inviting them to a conference, or whatever the purpose of your email happens to be.
Now, in this case, I'm not going to add anything further, but I could add other details. If your CSV file contains information such as the product they last purchased, or perhaps the region of the world in which they live in,
Adding automatic follow-up messages
well, you can include that here as well. Now, a very powerful feature here within Right Inbox is that we can add a follow-up in addition to the original email. So down below, if I wish to, I can say, add a follow up.
And maybe in this case, if they haven't replied to me in just three days, I want to send a special follow-up message. Now, we have a few other options here as well, including if they have opened up the email, maybe the following day after they open the email, I want to send a special message. Maybe if I've included a particular link, I want to send a special message as well.
You can add multiple follow-ups, not just the one, based on your specific needs. Now, in this example, I'm going to remove that follow-up, but this is a very powerful feature right here within Right Inbox.
Next up, let's hit Preview just to see if everything is looking the way we want to. At the top, it's going to show the actual email address which is going to send it out to. And I can see it's going to say, "Hi Lenna, we are looking forward to serving Feltz Printing Service in 2023."
"Hi Donette, we are looking forward to serving Printing Dimensions in 2023." Now, of course, you don't need to go through each and everyone. But it might be a smart idea to preview a couple of them just to make sure that your formatting is correct.
But you can see how much more personal, how much more engaging these emails will be since they're addressed to a specific individual
and include some very specific information about them.
Confirm and send out emails
Our very last step is to confirm and schedule this Mail Merge email. Now we can choose a date in the future, a specific date and time. We can also enable link tracking. So if you want to track when a recipient clicks a link in your email, or when they open that email.
This can be especially helpful so that you can reply or engage with them at the appropriate time. The last thing here is you need to be made aware
of the daily message limit within Gmail. There is a 250 daily limit. So if you want to be within that limit, you may need to send out these emails at a smaller batch per day. Now, for myself, we're perfectly fine because we're under that limit.
So I'm going to say 50 per day is absolutely fine. And I just need to acknowledge at this particular step. Lastly, in the top right hand corner, I'm going to select Start Mail Merge. And, congratulations. It will start running at approximately this time later today.
I'm going to return to my campaigns. And now I can see this one that I just created has started to run, is scheduled to go, but I can go back and review the data from my other campaigns as well. And look at all this valuable information.
How many were actually sent? How many have replied?] How many have opened? How many were clicked? And how many perhaps were bounced? Maybe you don't have the correct email address. In my case here, this is because I'm using sample data.
So almost all of those email addresses are fake email addresses, but valuable information that you can use in the future. Now, if you enjoyed this Gmail tutorial, you'll love my video on how to get the most out of filters and labels.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
