I know a lot of people are going to look at the title of this post and groan, but it’s about time I visited the world of e-mail newsletters.

A lot of companies use e-mail newsletters, but are their newsletters working for them? Here are a few of things to keep in mind:

Keep the content relevant: while news about the company is interesting, it may not be what the subscriber signed up for in the first place. If the content doesn’t make someone say, “I need to forward this to…” then it’s time to think about changing up the content.

Always ask them questions: surveys are the easiest way to gain feedback from your audience. Embedding a link to a simple survey (no more than four or five multiple-choice questions with one free response question) will help you gain feedback as to what the reader wants to hear about.

Quiz them about what is assumed knowledge: you’d be surprised how often this leads to interesting results. Giving a link to a 5-10 question quiz will help you find out what is base knowledge for your customer versus what you may need to educate them on before they’ll buy or become a client.

Remember, newsletters are another acquisition channel. You’re going to have fall-off, but you can help guide those that might continue on by finding out what makes them tick and telling them what they want to hear.

I was recently on an automaker’s homepage and something struck me. There was one of every model they produce on their homepage (11 in all), along with a banner ad to specials regarding each one of those models. This becomes a problem for the customer.

Presenting too many options up front causes potential customers to not continue down the purchase funnel to acquisition. If they are left to navigate an array of choices (typically more than three presented at once), they will be left unable to decide and leave your site.

It would have been better for there to be a list of three major categories of vehicles, followed by a unique path to purchase for each one, making the customer’s decision as easy as possible.

This idea works beyond the realm of goods and into service industries. If your company provides a variety of services, presented all at once, the potential client will have too much information to sift through just to find out that your company provides the service they need.

Remember, internet users won’t read much over a paragraph per web page, so think of grouping together information into major categories and guiding the potential client through how your company provides a service for each of those categories.