Email newsletters are now the preferred online mode of communicating to customers and prospects alike. The key challenge for email marketers is keeping to the job at hand week after week-- driving interest. Whether it's sparking interest in a product that ultimately leads to a sale or piquing the reader's curiosity so they click, go to the website and drive up those precious page views, the email newsletter is the "interest starting point" for your customers. Driving these interest starting points edition after edition is all a matter of staying focused.

Here are five ways to do just that.

Next: Step #1: Do you need a newsletter?