Content Marketing Framework for Building Brand Image: A Case Study of Sohar International School, Oman

Background

In an increasingly interconnected digital world, content marketing plays a pivotal role in in building the brand image of contemporary organizations (Rowley, 2008; Wang & Chan-Olmsted, 2020). Appropriately designed content can positively influence the consumer behaviour by providing today’s tech-savvy consumers the needed information, which is timely, useful and easily accessible (Wang & Chan-Olmsted, 2020). The last two years have added new dimensions to the content marketing practices as the pandemic hit the world where a huge increase in the use of digital technologies was witnessed. Some organizations, taking this as an opportunity, focussed their energies on creating useful content, helping them strengthen their relationship with their consumers (Wang & Chan-Olmsted, 2020). For the current study, a leading international school in Oman is selected to study the effectiveness of their content marketing spanning over the last two years and as a result, to develop a framework, which can be followed by other organizations as well. The school’s content marketing efforts and active social media presence consistently had a positive impact on their audiences resulting in high enrolments even during the unprecedented times under CoVID 19 scenario. This study utilises the tools like, Netnography and thematic analysis of the qualitative data. Considering the dimensions of AIDA model, an analysis is done as to how effective content marketing can grab the Attention of clients through eye-catching images and videos, making them indulge and develop Interest in the content’s usefulness, followed by a strong desire to avail the organization’s services, and finally opting for the Action to use the services (Hadiyati, 2016; Hassan et al., 2015). AIDA model is considered to be an appropriate model to be used for such studies as it covers the essential elements. It also logically covers the sequential stages influencing the target audience (Hadiyati, 2016; Hassan et al., 2015).