Content and Mobile Marketing as Informational Signals in an Emerging Digital Market: Evidence from Consumer Buying Behavior in Adamawa State, Nigeria

This study examined the relationships between content marketing, mobile marketing and consumer buying behavior among online shoppers in Adamawa State of Nigeria. Drawing on the Information Asymmetry Theory and Signaling Theory, the paper employs the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) framework to present a different perspective on the link between digital marketing stimuli and consumer responses. Quantitative survey method was used and data were collected from 332 active online consumers selected by non-probability purposive sampling. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression. The two-predictor regression model explained 29.0% of the variance in consumer purchasing behavior (R² = 0.290; adjusted R² = 0.286; F(2, 329) = 67.259, p < 0.001). It was found that content marketing has a positive and statistically significant relationship with consumer purchasing behavior (β = 0.373, t = 7.236, p < 0.001). Similarly, mobile marketing has a positive and statistically significant relationship (β = 0.260, t = 5.048, p < 0.001). Both associations remained significant after application of the Bonferroni-adjusted α = 0.025 criterion. The results show that consumer purchasing behavior is positively related to educational digital material and user-friendly mobile communication in the research setting. The two predictors together explain a large part of the variability of consumer buying behavior, while the residual variance suggests the importance of other consumer, market and institutional factors. The research contributes by providing findings from a regional African digital marketplace and highlights the need to design digital marketing strategies that are responsive to consumers’ information needs and conditions of access to digital services.