Training courses, conferences and many other pay as you go seminars have paying attendees (as well as non-paying attendees). What they will all need is of course advising that their registration form has been received, that money has been accepted, receipts issued and closer to the date - confirmation of attendance along with maps (if not already supplied).

Now a lot of this can be automated. You can also offload this part of the process to an events organiser if you don't feel that you have the time or knowledge to do it yourself. Of course these people will need payment for the service, so you will need to factor in this cost to the price of admission, which is why it can be cheaper to do this yourself.

What do you need to do?

Create a mail merge document. The usual fields are First Name, Surname, Name of Course / Event, Date of course / event,. Time of course / event, Organisation, Address 1, Address 2, Suburb, State / County, Country if applicable, postcode.

Once you have created the mail merge document, all you need to do is input the information from the registration forms when they arrive. As you input the data, pick up the telephone and call the contact person to say you have received the form and thank them. Advise the contact person that the confirmation letter will go directly to the attendee.

Create a formal confirmation letter, insert the merge fields and add the following (or similar of course)

Dear

This is to confirm you are booked onto the .....

Course information is as follows:

Please see attached map for parking information, we look forward to seeing you on the day

Signature

Then all you need to do is merge to a new document and print them out and post them.

Depending on the event, confirmation letters can be posted approximately 2 weeks before the course is due to run, which is long enough for people to lose the information!! But that is a personal choice.