Creative and effective Email marketing

Email marketing is becoming more and more popular among not only large scale businesses but small and medium scale businesses these days.  Here are some reasons to why email marketing is getting popular.
It is cost effective
Think about the cost of printing 1000 flyers and distributing them to your target market. If you make a mistake during the design process or had to change your offer details or contact details, your only option is to re-print which will incur more design and printing charges. Email campaigns on the other hand, cost much less to design and distribution charges are only about 2 cents per email.  You can always change the key information on the email anytime you like.
It is interactive
You can have external links such as call to actions and links to your website on the email campaign. You can also include features such as ‘forward to a friend’ to increase the impressions.
It is personalized
Personalization is really important in email marketing. Personalisation allows you to address your recipients by their first and last name and show them the content that they want to see. This will increase recipient’s loyalty, response and satisfaction. Have you ever received an email with Dear <Your name> as the first sentence followed by an offer that you couldn’t resist. More information you know about you customers and market more you can personalize your email campaigns.
Results are measurable
You can easily track how many of your recipients’ opened your email, which links they clicked on, if they forward your email to their friends/colleagues. This information is critical when measuring the ROI and to improve the content to increase the ROI. These are few of the main reasons why email marketing is becoming more and more popular among businesses.
Here are some other Interesting readings
What DMA (Direct Marketing Association) says about email marketing's ROI - Reference
Small business owners say e-mail works better than social media – Reference
Available email marketing systems and things to consider when choosing an email marketing system
Finding an email marketing system is easy; if you go to Google.com and type “email Marketing” you will see hundreds of email marketing systems for you to choose from. Trick is to find the right email marketing system for you and your business needs. So what should you consider when you choose an email marketing system?
Ease of use – Why would you buy something that you can’t understand or hard to learn Help and support – Who is there to help you with the questions and issues. Security and privacy – Are your information safe in the system? Contact management - Can you manage your contacts and databases within the system? Result tracking – Does it generate reports for your email campaigns? Price – Is it within your budget?
These are some important factors you should consider before you buy an email marketing system.  But there are so many other things you may consider when making your decision.  Some popular email marketing tools
Mailchimp: Mailchimp system is based on CSS and HTML. It has its own tag system called “Merge Tags” to edit emails.
Likes, Editing email templates is easy User friendly dashboard Pleasing User interface design Social media integration Cheap No monthly service charge and free monthly send limit Google Analytics integration Dislikes, User must have good CSS and HTML knowledge when building email templates Hard to change the template layout after it is built No Phone support
Campaign Monitor: Campaign Monitor system is simple and user friendly than mail chimp system. It is easy to edit emails built in the system.
Likes, Editing email templates is easy User friendly dashboard Pleasing User interface design Social media integration Cheap No monthly service charge Dislikes, User must have good CSS and HTML knowledge when building email templates No phone support
Exact Target: Another cool system with a wide client base. The system is not too friendly with the user but it is considerably not bad.
Likes, Editing email templates is easy Social media integration Mobile marketing Dislikes, User must have good CSS and HTML knowledge when building email templates Demo available only on request
Vision6: Email system with a drag and drop function to edit emails. This enables easy email creations even if the person does not have the HTML knowledge
Likes, Building email templates is easy (layout also can be altered easily) Editing email templates is easy Social media integration User friendly interface Conditional content Advanced automated campaigns Mobile marketing Dislikes, Monthly fee Considerably expensive than mail chimp and Campaign monitor
Email templates Design of the email is also very important to grab the viewer’s attention.  If your email template looks boring, who would like to go ahead and read what is in the email? So the first impression is critical when it comes to effective email marketing. Let’s talk about why the design is important, Think advertising; why people spend more money on advertising? It’s because pleasing and creative designs always catch our eyes; it leads the viewers to look into the content in it. So, why not in email marketing?  Here are some creative and very effective email templates which I found.
RueLaLa’s Email Marketing Campaign for Valentine’s The beauty of the email is that it’s personalized in a very Martha Stewart’s Good Things kind of way, they’ve given a valentines that you can print out, cut, and give to my friends. And they are really cute and clever – working the “Rue” part of their name into the messages, along with one little snarky one about leaving you alone to shop. (Ladies, you can print that one for your husband :) )
ButiClub Exhibition Invitation Simplicity is the key in the announcement email for the ButiClub Exhibition. The Hungry Castle logo, the Like button and the RSVP button are all given plenty of room to breathe and are easy to spot. All up, this is a light and bright email invitation that puts these unusual butifarra in the spotlight. You would be a silly sausage to not go to this event!
Wait, but what if you don’t have enough creativity to design a catchy email? You can find plenty of service providers who have the creativity to give your email campaign a boost.  Also you can find lot of resources on email templates if you try google. Some email service providers have ready-made email templates which you can buy and even for free.
Here are some email template galleries you can use.
Campaign monitor templates
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/ Cool and creative email templates compatible with campaign monitor, free to use for your email campaign.
Mailchimp email templates
http://mailchimp.com/resources/html-email-templates/ Creative email template layouts compatible with mailchimp, it’s free to use and you can rebrand these layouts for your email campaign.
Cool templates
http://cooltemplates.com.au Email templates showroom with hundreds of different email templates which you can buy from AUD 165 including creative service (Apply your brand to the template) and building the email template in your email marketing system and test the email in different email clients like outlook, gmail, yahoomail. etc. You only have to provide the branding details (Logo, colors, etc.) and sit back and relax while they do it for you.
Email marketing systems supported, Mailchimp  Campaign monitor Vision6 Exact target Interspire Promotion manager  HTML (Compatible with almost every email marketing system)
And also make sure you do not make these mistakes when you start your email marketing campaign. This will reduce unsubscriptions and will increase customer response and satisfactions, making your business stand out the crowd.
Buying Email Lists When you buy an email list, there’s no way to guarantee that those people are really interested in your messages
Hard to Recognize “From” Names and Subject Lines Your subject line and from name/address are your only chance to grab subscriber’s attention in their jam-packed inboxes.
Avoiding CAN-SPAM Compliance The Can-Spam Act requires that all messages contain the sender’s valid physical postal address. Aside from the legal obligation, putting your contact address in your emails is the best way to show subscribers that you have a legitimate identity and that you won’t run for the hills as soon as they make a purchase from you.
Irrelevant and Infrequent Emails Sending emails that don’t relate back to their original request for info irritates readers and is a guaranteed way to rack up a high number of unsubscribes.
No Call to Action With all of the emphasis placed on quality content and sharp design, it’s understandable that marketers sometimes miss the obvious. When a reader opens a message and they’re interested in learning more, don’t forget they will be thinking, “What do I do next?”
Not Testing Before Sending Send test copies to test accounts at several different email services to ensure that the message is readable, the images are viewable and the links are functional.
Hope this helps you a lot to get a better idea about effective email marketing and to plan your next big email campaign.