Let’s say that you want to send personalized newsletters to your customers who are located in a specific geographic area. You can sort your Accounts and Business Contacts by location in Microsoft® Business Contact Manager for Office Outlook® 2003, and then use Mail Merge in Microsoft Word to send the newsletters.

To send personalized newsletters to your customers by geographical area, you'll complete the following tasks:

• View Account or Business Contact records by location.
• Create a personalized e-mailing.
• Create personalized newsletters and address labels.

View Account or Business Contact records by location

1. On the Business Tools menu, click Accounts or Business Contacts.
2. On the View menu, point to Arrange By, point to Current View, and then click Define Views.
3. In the Custom View Organizer dialog box, select By Location, and then click Modify.
4. In the Customize View dialog box, click Fields.
5. In the Show Fields dialog box, under Select available fields from, select Address fields.
6. Under Available fields, select Business Address State, and then click Add to move it to the right under Show these fields in this order.
7. Click OK.

   Note  By default, the newly selected field is displayed to the far right of the view. If you want to move the field to the left, click Move Up under Show these fields in this order.

8. In the Customize View dialog box, click Group By.
9. Under Group items by, select Business Address State, click OK, and then click OK again.
10. In the Group By dialog box, select Address fields under Select available fields from.
11. In the Custom View Organizer dialog box, click Apply View.

Note  You may also select to view your records by Business Address Postal Code or Business Address City. Both fields are available in Address fields.

Once you have sorted your business contacts by geographical area, you can use Mail Merge in Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Word to create personalized e-mail messages, newsletters, and address labels after you have sorted your records.

Create a personalized e-mail mailing

1. On the Standard toolbar, click the arrow next to New and then click Mail Message.
2. In the new e-mail message, on the Tools menu, point to Letter and Mailings, and then click Mail Merge.

   Note  The Mail Merge option is only available when the cursor is in the body of the e-mail message.

3. In the Mail Merge Wizard, select E-mail messages under Select document type.
4. Click Next, and then follow the instructions in the wizard.

You can also send personalized newsletter and attached address labels to them.

Create personalized newsletters and address labels

1. On the Business Tools menu, click Accounts or Business Contacts.
2. On the Tools menu, click Mail Merge.
3. In the Mail Merge Contacts dialog box, select an option under Contacts, Fields to merge, and Document file.
4. Save the current set of contacts in a merge file by selecting the Permanent file check box and clicking Browse to enter a file name.
5. Under Document type, select the type of mail merge that you want.
6. Under Merge to, select where you want to export the merged records.
7. Click OK.
8. On the Tools menu in Word, point to Letters and Mailings, and then click Mail Merge.

More information

For more information about Account or Business Contact record views, see Help in Business Contact Manager.