Conduct a Mail Merge to Properties

The following tutorial demonstrates how to conduct a Letter Mail merge as a bulk communication to your property database. For example send a letter to all prospective vendors attached to current appraisals properties.

By creating the mail merge via properties not contacts you are able to merge information using variables from both the property record AND the related contact record.

Hints

• To successfully conduct a mail merge you must select a letter template that contains property letter variables to correctly populate relevant property and contact details. For example if the mail merge is to be sent to the owner attached to each property, the owner variable must be used. An owner must also be assigned to each property.
• For prospecting purposes, the use of the Property Mail Address and Resident variables are recommended as the Property Mail Address variable will populate the property address in a mailing format and the resident name or salutation variables will populate the name and salutation respectively of the attached (in the following order: Owner Occupier, Tenant, Owner, Prospective Vendor, Vendor, Prospective Landlord or Landlord. If the attached contact does not satisfy any of these contact classes they will populate as RESIDENT.

- Use the 'Resident'  or Related Contact role (e.g. 'Purchaser') Letter Variables

- The letter Variable for the property address is {$prop_mail_address} which returns the property address in a mailing format.

- To ensure the letter is addressed to the appropriate person there have been rules applied to the following Resident Variables

       - {$resident} - Will insert the Title, First Name and Last Name of the attached Owner Occupier, Tenant, Owner, Prospective Vendor, Vendor, Prospective Landlord or Landlord (if one exists), If the attached contact does not satisfy any of these contact classes they will populate as RESIDENT.

       - {$resident_dear} - Will insert the Salutation of the attached Owner Occupier, Tenant, Owner, Prospective Vendor, Vendor, Prospective Landlord or Landlord (if one exists), If the attached contact does not satisfy any of these contact classes they will populate as RESIDENT.

For more information on Variable Best Practice - Rules and Recommendations - click here.  

1. Click the Property icon from the Main Menu

2. Click Advanced Search from the Left Panel

3. Complete an Advanced Property Search to generate your list of recipients
 

4. Click the Letter Icon at the top of your search results 

5. Select template from the Select Template drop-down

*Note: If you wish to create a new, edit an existing or copy a letter template simply select the template from the Select a Template drop-down, construct/edit your letter in the Edit Template box and click Save Template.

The Edit Template box allows you to:

• Add/Edit the text in the template using the formatting tools (If pasting from Microsoft Word, please use the paste from word tool or better yet only paste plain text from notepad).
• Add/Edit the variables using the red V icon - for Contact Variable Best Practice - Rules and Recommendations - click here.  
• Click Save Template to Create a New Letter template or Update Existing Template.

6. Select which staff member you will be sending the Mail Merge from (Users with the required permissions can create Mail Merges on behalf of anyone else in their Team, Admin/Master can do this on behalf of anyone in the office).

7. Select a role to exclude properties which do not have an active contact attached in a specified role

8. Edit the Template as you wish (changes will only be saved to the template if you click Save Template)

9. Click Save & Proceed to continue mail merge

10. Refine your recipient list.

10. Click Save & Proceed

11. On the Preview Letter tab you can view all letters that will be generated with their variables filled. Use the green arrow buttons to navigate through the preview letters.

Please note:  All missing Variable data will be highlighted as follows: #BUYER#

12. You may also attach a note to each property. Tick the Add note/history checkbox, then enter a Headline and Description

13. Click Generate Mail Merge. Your mail merge will open in a new browser tab.

*Note: To print one letter per page without any page number or URL bars you will need to set up your Print Settings