The aim of this thesis is to acquaint the reader with the issue of content marketing for generating leads and information about potential customers, then to analyze and offer some recommendations for its further use among B2B suppliers of educational and consulting services. The theoretical part discusses three key topics: the specifics of the services and B2B sector; content marketing and the reasons for its inclusion in marketing strategy; and the issue of lead generation as a possible metric of content marketing and sales tool. The practical part of the thesis approaches this topic from the perspective of four representatives of service suppliers, complemented by a point of view of the mediate company IVITERA. This company brings together one of the largest B2B communities in the services sector on the Czech market within its (especially online) media projects. Research was conducted through individual interviews with representatives of all five companies and by an analysis of secondary data, leads and keywords provided by the mediate company.

This study has been conducted with an aim to examine how employees working at B2B companies in Umeå understand, and describe the ever changing strategy of content marketing whilst at the same time analysing how said companies utilise the strategy on their own websites. Another aim of this study is to determine whether content marketing is used differently depending on the companies size and reach. The study was conducted by means of interviews and content analysis, using semiotics as a method. The result showed that despite each company understanding and using the term content marketing they differed slightly when describing its meaning, and implementation. / Denna studie har genomförts med syfte att undersöka hur anställda på B2B-företag i Umeå uppfattar och beskriver den växande marknadsföringsstrategin content marketing, samt att analysera hur den används på företagens hemsidor. Studien syftar även till att undersöka om begreppet används och uppfattas olika beroende på företagens storlek. Det teoretiska ramverket består av tidigare forskning och teorier som behandlar content marketing som begrepp och strategi. Studien har genomförts med ett kvalitativt förhållningssätt i form av intervjuer samt en innehållsanalys där vi utgår från semiotiken som metod. Resultatet av studien visade att trots att samtliga B2B-företag uppfattat det omtalade begreppet så skiljer det sig i hur de definierar det och dess innebörd samt hur strategin tillämpas i praktiken.