The nature of this bachelor thesis is a product thesis as the objective was to create a content marketing action plan for the case company;XX. The thesis was produced during Spring and Summer 2016 in order to provide efficient guidelines for commissioner to create and conduct successful content marketing strategy in Autumn 2016.

The theoretical framework was chosen to support the product, e.g. action plan, creation as well as to give thorough understanding for the authors and the case company about content creation and distribution under content marketing framework. The theory consists of general marketing theories which deepen into inbound, lifecycle and content marketing as the thesis goes further. Also social media channels, styles of writing, tools, budgeting, frequency and measurement activities are covered.

Authors chose benchmarking of the competitive companies as the research in order to get wider perspective of the industry and gain insight of well-done content marketing. The em-phasis of the benchmarking was to evaluate appealing and shareable content for an educa-tional institution but also to study one other company that does successful content marketing.

Consumers are not only more demanding but also more selective than ever. This, and the fact that marketing can be seen everywhere in today’s digitalized world, makes it harder for companies sustain and delight customers. Social Medias are standing as contiguous reality and mastering them with appealing content is the key for succeeding in marketing in near future. Thus the value and importance of content marketing strategy have increased in B2C marketing communication.

The commissioner for this study was XX, a British educational institution providing education to Finnish customers. Their abilities to do content marketing were limited, thus this thesis was commissioned. Adopting the action plan, commissioner will gain the abilities to do successful content marketing to attract the right customers. The implementation of this action plan re-quires long-term commitment from the commissioner.