Developing guidelines for a startup company’s content marketing strategy
Heiskanen, Henna (2018)
Haaga-Helia ammattikorkeakoulu
2018
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201805097438
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201805097438
Tiivistelmä
This is a project-based bachelor’s thesis, that aims to identify what a company needs to consider when building a coherent and effective content marketing strategy. Based on the findings, content marketing guidelines have been developed for a Spanish startup Geowhim Technologies SL, dedicated to IT-services and applications. The company wants to improve its online presence by implementing content marketing strategy to its website with a goal of gaining recognisability in the market and users for its mobile application Geowhim. The objective of this thesis is to facilitate the company’s content marketing strategy building with the developed guidelines.
The structure of the thesis follows the zipper-method, where the theoretical and empirical parts are presented together. Each theory part is accompanied by recommendations for Geowhim Technologies’ strategy building. The thesis objectives and limitations are presented in the beginning of the work together with a brief company introduction followed by the development of the guidelines in the main chapters. The discussion part summarizes the findings, gives future development proposals and a reflecting self-evaluation.
The theory covered in this thesis combines the field professionals’ instructions to effective content marketing strategy building. Bases on these instructions, six key points of an effective content marketing strategy has been recognised. These points are goal determination, understanding of the target audience, content type selection, content channel management, planning of the content publishing and performance measurement.
Through this thesis it becomes clear that the content marketing strategy should be built around the goal and the target audience. Since content marketing in its simplicity is about creating and sharing online content, for it to function as an effective marketing method, it must have an intended goal and purpose with a focus in bringing value for the right people, for the right reasons. For this a content marketing strategy is needed as it leads the way and ensures the remaining on the road.
The topic of this thesis is of current relevance because content marketing is recognized as an effective marketing method, and one that can generate important commercial impacts when planned and implemented carefully. Because the topic is viewed from a start-up company’s point of view, the developed guidelines consider only the key points that a content marketing strategy should contain. These guidelines can be utilized as a base for similar content marketing kick-off cases as well as further developed.
The structure of the thesis follows the zipper-method, where the theoretical and empirical parts are presented together. Each theory part is accompanied by recommendations for Geowhim Technologies’ strategy building. The thesis objectives and limitations are presented in the beginning of the work together with a brief company introduction followed by the development of the guidelines in the main chapters. The discussion part summarizes the findings, gives future development proposals and a reflecting self-evaluation.
The theory covered in this thesis combines the field professionals’ instructions to effective content marketing strategy building. Bases on these instructions, six key points of an effective content marketing strategy has been recognised. These points are goal determination, understanding of the target audience, content type selection, content channel management, planning of the content publishing and performance measurement.
Through this thesis it becomes clear that the content marketing strategy should be built around the goal and the target audience. Since content marketing in its simplicity is about creating and sharing online content, for it to function as an effective marketing method, it must have an intended goal and purpose with a focus in bringing value for the right people, for the right reasons. For this a content marketing strategy is needed as it leads the way and ensures the remaining on the road.
The topic of this thesis is of current relevance because content marketing is recognized as an effective marketing method, and one that can generate important commercial impacts when planned and implemented carefully. Because the topic is viewed from a start-up company’s point of view, the developed guidelines consider only the key points that a content marketing strategy should contain. These guidelines can be utilized as a base for similar content marketing kick-off cases as well as further developed.