Inserting Merge Fields into a Broadcast

What Is a Merge Field?

Merge fields are used whenever you want to programmatically include information from your users' records in the body of an email. 

Why Would You Use a Merge Field?

When you send a broadcast through the VoterVoice software, you can address your contacts with something generic like "Dear Supporter" or "Dear Member." If you want to personalize that instead, you can use a merge field to automatically insert the contacts' names. You might also want to include the recipient's home or business city if that's pertinent to the message. You might even want to end the email with a list of their legislators for the newly begun session. 

How Do You Add a Merge Field?

1. Place your cursor in the message body where you want the contact's information to appear. 
2. Click the "insert merge field" dropdown menu (circled below) at the bottom left corner of the body area and select the information you wish to insert.
3. A placeholder box, (circled below), will appear with the field you are merging in.

A merge field will insert whatever information is present for any given contact. If a contact's first name value is blank, for instance, no information will be brought over. VoterVoice does not have default values to insert where no information exists. 

A test message will not have merged information since test messages do not connect with the contact records. 

What Information Can Be Merged?

• Prefix
• First Name
• Last Name
• Home Street Address
• Home City
• Home State
• Home Postal Code
• Title 
• Company
• Business Street Address
• Business City
• Business State
• Business Postal Code
• Contact ID
• Official Info, (appears in block area, cannot be worked into text of a sentence)
• Custom Field Information, (depends on custom fields created in your database)