Email marketing campaigns containing links to editorial content enjoyed greater click-to-open links than those leading to traditional marketing material, according to an eMarketer report.

While email marketing campaigns have seen a slight decrease in click-through rates in the last two years, a new report from eMarketer found that the medium still provides great opportunityies for businesses.

Citing numbers from the Association of National Advertisers, eMarketer reported 94 percent markets use email newsletters to reach prospects and current customers. Additionally, eMarketer reported that click-through rates for email marketing material drastically increase when the messages contain editorial content.

Companies including informational content marketing in their email blasts saw a click-to-open rate of 30.4 percent. Meanwhile, those containing info related solely to services or general marketing content saw lower click-through rates of 20.9 percent and 18.4 percent respectively.

The amount of marketing material circulating the web has made traditional marketing material less appealing to potential prospects for both B2C and B2B vendors. However, news content marketing, which places greater reliance on industry trends and demonstrations of services’ value over aggressive branding, provides both informational resources and calls to action.

Additionally, molding content to specific audiences targeted by email marketing campaigns can improve conversion rates. However, producing this content has proved difficult for some companies.

Brafton reported on Monday that industry expert Brody Dorland believes customizing content to the right audience is a critical element of successful integrated web marketing strategies. Ensuring that content is written for the audience likely to receive the email newsletter improves click-through rates the same way content marketing campaigns should factor web behavior of a specific demographic into posting schedules.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.