Introduction. The development of digital technologies is stimulating businesses to adopt creative approaches to managing marketing communications. Content marketing is beco­ming a relevant tool for presenting valuable content to the target audience. In times of war, it changes according to the demands of society to strengthen market positions and improve brand interaction. The problem. The use of content marketing at trade enterprises requires the development of an effective implementation strategy and its sta­ges, that harmoniously combines the practice of digital marketing of trade enterprises with the classic principles, methods, functions and tools of content marketing. The aim. To substantiate the current trends in the use of content marketing in the digital communication environment and to develop stages of implementation of content marketing strategy at trade enterprises. Methods. The methods of theoretical gene­ralization, analysis and synthesis, system struc­tural analysis, comparison, and grouping were used. Results. The approach to content creation by trade enterprises is substantiated and a strategy for the implementation of content marketing is developed. The peculiarity of its use is to ensure consistency of content with marketing goals and objectives, selection of adaptive techniques for content creation, distribution, promotion, con­sideration of the relevant norms and restrictions of the respective target audience, and ensuring the strengthening of brand loyalty by increasing the value of content throughout the consumer journey. Conclusions. As trade enterprises reduce their territorial coverage in the online format, content marketing is becoming the basis for suc­cessful digital marketing communications. It helps to expand target audiences, improve pe­rso­nalized and targeted online interaction with consumers, and optimize business processes. The use of content marketing by trade enter­prises requires creation, distribution, promotion of content according to an appropriate algo­rithm, and introduction of an adaptive content-marketing implementation strategy.