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Better Than Mail Merge

Written by: Donald F. Pooley

Article Overview: In the last two issues you've learned two ways to send your email newsletter to clients, and other subscribers. Each has a downside, so I started looking for a suitable program to email TIP as the number of its subscribers grew.

Better Than Mail Merge

In the last two issues you've learned two ways to send your email newsletter to clients, and other subscribers. Each has a downside, so I started looking for a suitable program to email TIP as the number of its subscribers grew.
Tried out one called MailLoop, and didn't find it any better than the mail-merge function of Word, despite costing $379.
Then my son told me about a program called WorldCast, which offers a free version. Tried it. Liked it. Bought it ($49).
It works much like mail-merge in that you keep your mailing list in an Excel or Access file, and write your newsletter in any word processor (even Notepad) to save as a text file. Then you use WorldCast to combine your list with your text.
Advantages it has over Word's mail-merge are:
* It costs nothing to try out;
* It solves the problems of the previous two methods;
* It validates email addresses before sending them;
* It's fast;
* It detects bad email addresses while sending;
* It provides a detailed log of each mailing;
* It accepts huge mailing lists;
* It includes a spell-checker, helpful wizard, thesaurus;
* It lets you personalize your message and subject line;
* And it lets you include attachments.
Once your list becomes too unwieldy for Word's mail-merge, try out the free version of WorldCast.

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