Academic guidelines for content marketing : research-based recommendations for better practice

Abstract

Due to rising interest in sharing brand content online much has been written about using content marketing as part of the company's marketing mix. However, different perspectives of what content marketing entails and how it should be implemented still abound. In addition numerous competing terms also add to the confusion. Content marketing is generally understood as sharing brand content via owned media to gain earned media in an attempt to encourage conversations about the brand to create, amongst others, more brand awareness. A documented strategy is at the core of successful content marketing practices yet very few companies follow documented guidelines impeding success. This paper adds to the paucity of academic research with regard to content marketing by focusing on best practices within specific academic guidelines. The paper qualitatively evaluates the prevalence of six fundamental elements of content marketing which should be considered by marketers as identified by Du Plessis (2015). By exploring an example of the content marketing practices of a large and successful company these six elements were verified against best practice in a real life setting. Even though Du Plessis' (2015) six elements provide some added clarity in terms of how this broader marketing approach should be managed and implemented, it needed some more theoretical and functional substantiation as the term content marketing has been mainly socially constructed. The research method applied for this study consisted of several steps which commenced with a literature review of content marketing, the importance of using a strategy and explaining the framework for the analysis. Second the content marketing of one of the world's leading brands via its stories microsite was qualitatively evaluated using this framework. The findings indicate that the six essential elements of content marketing are present in the way the brand stories are created and shared. The findings were then further illustrated through a concept map which could be used as a heuristic by those companies embarking on content marketing to construct better strategies.