Determinants of content marketing effectiveness: Conceptual framework and empirical findings from a managerial perspective

Content marketing has gained momentum around the world and is steadily gaining importance in the marketing mix of organizations. Nevertheless, it has received comparatively little attention from the scientific community. In particular, there is very little knowledge about the effectiveness, optimal design and implementation of content marketing. In this study, the authors conceptualize content marketing as a set of activities that are embedded in and contingent on the specific organizational context. Based on this framework, the authors empirically investigate the context features determining content marketing effectiveness from a managerial perspective, using primary data collected from senior marketers in 263 organizations from various sectors and across different size categories, conducting multiple regression analysis. The empirical results indicate that clarity and commitment regarding content marketing strategy and a content production in line with the organization’s target groups’ content needs as well as normative journalistic quality criteria are context factors associated with higher content marketing effectiveness. The outcomes also reveal that regularly measuring content marketing performance and using the data obtained as guidance for improving content offerings positively influence content marketing effectiveness, as do structural specialization and specialization-enabling processes and systems. The insights provided in this study could offer important theoretical contributions for research on content marketing and its effectiveness and may help practitioners to optimize the design and implementation of content marketing initiatives.