Email is a powerful tool when used correctly. Having the right message land in your customer's inbox at the right time can have a dramatic, positive impact on your business, while a half-baked or broken message can banish your future mailings to the spam folder forever.

While it is easy enough to whip up a quick n' dirty message in Outlook or Gmail and hit send, there is a world of little things you can do to elevate a good message to a holy-cow-I-have-to-have-it kind of message. To that end, here is a little workflow walk-through of free online tools you can use to craft your own blockbuster email marketing messages.

1. Increase the visual appeal

One of the most immediate changes you can make to your messages is to change its appearance. CampaignMonitor has a fantastic free HTML template builder which lets you choose the layout and color scheme for your message and then spits out custom HTML you can use to fill in with your own information. As an added bonus, the templates are mobile-friendly and look great on tablets and smartphones.

2. Tweak the message

Once you have grabbed the message HTML from CampaignMonitor head over to CRTLQ and fire up their HTML Mailing tool. Paste in your HTML code and make any tweaks you need using the dead-simple WYSIWYG editor. You can also use this tool to eventually send your message, but only after you check out the next three steps...

3. Eveyrthing needs splelchcek

Even the best of us sometimes have a spelling slip-up. In the absence of a proper document editor like Microsoft Word, head over to PolishMyWriting to make sure your message is free of spelling errors, grammar slip-ups and proper styling. Because as we all now, nothing jettisons a potential sale faster than a marketing message full of errors.

4. Get a preview

As the number of devices and clients from which we can access our email increases, there is an increasing importance in making sure that email you send looks good no matter what platform it is accessed from. With that in mind, PutsMail is one of the handiest tools around, as it lets you preview exactly what your email HTML will look like by sending test copies to yourself. Simply plug in the finished HTML you have created, enter a test address, and get a preview copy of the message in your inbox.

5. Avoid the spam folder

You may spend hours crafting the perfect message, but that will all be for nothing if it gets caught in your prospect's spam filter! Ensure this doesn't happen by checking your spam score with this handy tool from Postmark. As with all the other tools mentioned, just paste in your message HTML and get an output detailing your spam score and any corrective measures that can be taken to ensure deliverability.

That's it! Once your message is good-to-go, you are free to hit the send button and await the results. Are there any other tools you use to make sure your marketing emails are the best they can be?

To view the original article, visit the Point2 Agent blog.