As a longtime reader of GQ magazine, Dylan Boyd subscribed to The Hound—the magazine's recently launched email newsletter—with high expectations. "So as I opened the email and took a gander," he writes at The Email Wars, "I was more than greatly disappointed to get what I would associate with a Sunday newspaper ad circular."

The short publication included five components:

• A promotion of "suiting events" at several Bloomingdale's stores.
• A Gillette-sponsored contest for basketball tickets.
• A plug for Phaidon Design Classics, a three-volume set of books sold for $110 by Amazon.com.
• A brief Q&A in which Brett—GQ's style correspondent—advises a reader to use a hair-sculpting paste made (surprise!) by Gillette.
• An invitation to interact with GQ at Twitter and Facebook.

"What were they thinking?" he asks. "A newsletter is something that shares articles, stories, content, ideas and information that keeps a subscriber in connection with the company that they opted in to."

To help you ensure your newsletter is a valuable resource for readers, Boyd offers these suggestions:

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