How to Print Labels and Form Letters with BCM and Word

You can use BCM Marketing Campaigns to print mailing labels, form letters, and send e-mail newsletters.  The easiest way to create a template is to add mail merge fields to a Word document.  Below are step-by-step instructions for creating a mailing label template.  When you create a form letter or e-mail newsletter, many of the same principles apply.

Create a Mailing Label Template

  1. Open a new document in Word (CTRL+N)
  2. From the "Mailings" tab, click "Start Mail Merge | Labels..."
  3. Select your label paper type (e.g. Avery US Letter 5163) and click "OK"
  4. From the "Mailings" tab, click "Select Recipients | Select from Outlook Contacts..."
  5. Choose the "Business Contacts" folder and click "OK"
  6. A list of your Business Contacts will be displayed.  Just click "OK" since we'll select specific recipients later.
  7. From the "Mailings" tab, click "Address Block"
  8. Select your desired address options, then click "OK"
  9. From the "Mailings" tab, click "Update Labels"
  10. Click "Preview Results" to see how your mail merge would look.
  11. Adjust font and size of the first label, then click "Update Labels" again to preview the changes

Once you're happy with how the labels look, you need to remove the Outlook data connection by copying the documents contents into a new document:

  1. Click the "Preview Results" button again to turn off the preview
  2. From the "Home" tab, click "Select | Select All" (or press CTRL+A)
  3. From the "Home" tab, click "Copy" (or press CTRL+C)
  4. Create a blank Word document (CTRL+N)
  5. From the "Home" tab, click "Paste" (or press CTRL+V)
  6. Click the save button to select a destination folder and file name (or press CTRL+S)
  7. Be sure to remember where you saved your template!

Note: To prevent accidental changes to your template, you should save a backup copy or mark the document Read-Only by right-clicking on the file in Windows Explorer and selecting "Properties", then check the "Read-only" box and click "OK".

Now you can print labels for specific customers by creating a new Marketing Campaign in BCM, selecting your recipients, and clicking the "Browse" button to locate the label template you created in the steps above.  Click the "Launch" button on the Marketing Campaign form to open Word and start the mail merge.  From the Word "Mailings" tab you can now click the "Finish & Merge" button to print your labels.

Additional Note: When you launch a BCM Marketing Campaign or open a Word document, you might see the following prompt:

Opening this document will run the following SQL command:
SELECT * FROM <your datasource>
Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you want to continue?

This message appears if the document references a mail merge data source.  This message is described in Knowledge Base article 825765.

Here are two alternatives to avoid this prompt:
1.) Copy and paste the document contents and mail merge fields into a new, blank document
      - or -
2.) Insert mail merge fields into the Word document without connecting it to a data source.  To do this:
     a.) From the Word Ribbon, select "Insert | Quick Parts | Field | Categories:Mail Merge"
     b.) Select AddressBlock or use MergeField to select specific fields (e.g. First_Name, Last_Name, Business_Phone, etc.)