The Impact of Content Marketing on Generation Z’s Purchase Decision in the Sports Nutrition Sector

Abstract

Content marketing, as the basis of any inbound marketing strategy and tool, creates brand awareness and promotes brand awareness. However, to be considered quality, it is vital that the content is relevant, unique and smart enough to be able to attract potential customers at the beginning of the sales funnel. At a more advanced stage, in order to retain their loyalty, it must be valuable, informative, emotional and, above all, reliable. In the sports nutrition sector, these characteristics are even more important, since the issue of credibility is extremely important for Generation Z. Focusing on the online trade of industry products, it is important to mention the purchase decision process, consisting of need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and, finally, post-purchase behavior. Each of these stages was analyzed taking into account the individuals under study. Generation Z is characterized by an excellent technological level, which is why they are so adept at the online world. Through a qualitative research, in which semi-structured interviews were carried out with consumers who fit the profile under study, it was possible to conclude that contents such as white papers, infographics, checklists, case studies and videos should be the focus of industry brands, so they should resort to search engine optimization techniques and/or proliferate them via social media marketing, at an early stage of the funnel. Further, taking advantage of email marketing to target promotional content is also a good practice.