Template

Digital Marketing Planning Template

Creating an integrated digital marketing strategy using the RACE Planning Framework

Author: Dr. Dave Chaffey

Part of the Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning Toolkit

 INTRODUCTION

How to use this RACE Planning Template

Aims of this template

This template will help you rapidly review and present a simple digital marketing
strategy. It is based on the Smart Insights RACE Planning Framework and the six
pillars of digital marketing success, which ensures complete and comprehensive
coverage of all the marketing activities needed to increase leads and sales across
the customer lifecycle. It is designed for all medium and larger businesses with a
marketing team.

How to use this template

For each of the six pillars, you will be presented with a number of questions about
your current digital marketing activities.

Use the checkboxes to quickly identify which activities are already in place.

Next, review the unchecked boxes and fill in the corresponding area of the table
with the actions required in priority order, where possible.

Turning your plan into action with Smart Insights resources

This template will give you a good starting point. To fully implement your plan
we will highlight specific Smart Insights resources to support action across all
the essential activities. These define a more in-depth spreadsheet-based audit, a
prioritized strategy, a 90-day implementation plan and 70+ Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs) you can adapt across RACE.
 THE SIX PILLARS OF EFFECTIVE DIGITAL MARKETING

Planning and Goals and Conversational

Media Content Experience
Governance Measurement Messaging
• Strategic initiatives • Forecasts • Paid media: paid search • Content marketing • Website customer • Email marketing
• Marketing integration • Digital KPIs and social strategy journeys • Mobile messaging
• Digital transformation • Digital dashboards • Owned media: organic • Top-of-funnel (TOFU) • Landing pages • Human-assisted
• Business and revenue • Customer profiles search and social • Middle-of-funnel (MOFU) • Multichannel path to chat
models • Attribution • Earned media: • Bottom-of-funnel purchase • Automation and
• Budgets and ROI • Business Intelligence co-marketing and (BOFU) • Conversion Rate CRM
• Systems, structures and influencer marketing • Generative AI strategy Optimization (CRO)
• Customer data
processes platforms • Offline/online • Personalization
• Resources and skills integration

• Marketing technology • Always-on and

campaign investment

The six pillars simplify digital marketing by organizing it into clear categories, reducing the confusion caused by the many available options.
Our research shows that many people invest time and money into marketing without a plan, goals or measurement. Madness!
Our six pillars highlight the key investment areas that every organization, regardless of size or sector, needs to consider when they are developing
their plans and priorities for interacting with and selling to consumers or businesses online.
We recommend that you review these success factors across each part of the RACE Framework, which you will be guided though in this template.
The Smart Insights RACE Planning Framework
 PLAN Key performance measures:
Situation review (current output) | Set goals and objectives | Define prioritized strategy

Plan: Define your strategy Success factors and deliverables for this planning stage:
To create an effective digital marketing
strategy, you must first have a good idea • Quantified opportunities based on benchmarking competitor activity
of what you’re currently doing, as well as
• Goals and objectives aligned with defined marketing strategy
your strengths and weaknesses.
• A data-driven process through customized analytics and KPI dashboards
It’s also important to understand the
market and your competitors’ activities. • A 90-day planning process prioritizing always-on marketing activities and SOPs to
follow
This will help highlight areas to focus on
and enables you to create actionable, • Defined customer personas and online value propositions
measurable goals.

Action points:
Identify all your current digital marketing
activities.
Take the next steps and turn your plan into action
Work out your strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. The SWOT/ >>> Download our Digital marketing plan workbook
TOWS frameworks are useful for this.

Outline goals and objectives and make Our workbook gives you a tried-and-tested structure based on the Smart Insights RACE
sure they’re Specific, Measurable, Planning Framework to help you create an effective integrated digital marketing strategy.
Attainable, Relevant and Timely (SMART).
If you’re short on time, there are five essential templates to complete, including a one-
Define transformation page summary, with more detailed templates for each part of RACE Planning.
Changes to people, skills, process,
structures and marketing technology.

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6 Pillars of Digital Success
1. Planning and governance
2. Goals and measurement
3. Media
4. Content
5. Experience
6. Conversational messaging
* Needed most in larger businesses
PLAN
Audit of current capabilities Strategic initiatives and actions
Check the box for the activities you have in place. For the boxes that are unchecked, write your planned action in the
space below
Do you have a defined, integrated digital marketing plan?
Do you have a defined marketing strategy?
Do you have a digital transformation change management plan? *
Have you conducted an employee skills gap analysis?
Do you have employee development plans in place?
Is your AI and MarTech stack defined?
Have you developed SMART objectives that align with your forecast
commercial contribution from digital channels?
Have your Google Analytics conversion events and dimensions been
customized?
Do you have a digital performance review dashboard in place?
Have you reviewed your digital media effectiveness?
Are effective Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) defined for your main
acquisition media? *
Have you assessed your content marketing effectiveness and ROI?
Do you have a defined content marketing strategy?
Is the relevant use of Generative AI tools defined?
Have you benchmarked your website for usability and customer journey
effectiveness?
Do you have a defined plan for structured testing?
Do you have a CRO/personalization plan? *
Have you planned your lifecycle email contact, targeting strategies and
sales cadences?
Do you have a defined customer retention plan? *
 REACH
Reach: Grow your audience
Reach involves building awareness of
your brand, products, and services on
other websites and in offline media to
build traffic to different web presences
like your main site, microsites or social
media pages.
It involves maximizing reach using
continuous inbound communications
and planned campaigns to create
multiple interactions using different
paid, owned and earned media
touchpoints.
Action points:
Perform keyword research to find areas
of strength and opportunity - both paid
and organic.
Define your key brand messages,
focussing on growing audience
awareness, familiarity and purchase
intent.
Create conversion events in Google
Analytics 4 to track activity.
Key performance measures:
Unique visitors | Value per visit | Fans/followers
Success factors and deliverables for this planning stage:
• A clear picture of how your digital media channels collectively perform
• Standard campaign tracking and attribution for reviewing performance
• A gap analysis for target keywords based on different consumer search types to
show opportunities for organic and paid search
• A social media campaign plan to promote the right content to the right people and
work with relevant influencers
• A paid and display media budget and schedule defining investments to reach your
audience
Take the next steps and turn your plan into action
>>> Download our SEO strategy audit checklist
Our SEO strategy audit checklist gives you a comprehensive list of activities to grade your
organization against. You can set tasks as priorities and designate responsible workers
inside your company against them so, once completed, you have a full list of further
actions that your team can work from.
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6 Pillars of Digital Success
1. Planning and governance
2. Goals and measurement
3. Media
4. Content
5. Experience
6. Conversational messaging
* Needed most in larger businesses
REACH
Audit of current capabilities Strategic initiatives and actions
Check the box for the activities you have in place. For the boxes that are unchecked, write your planned action in the
space below
Have you created an acquisition budget and plan?
Have you defined your key brand messages, focussing on growing
audience awareness, familiarity and purchase intent?
Have you performed keyword research to find areas of strength and
opportunity - both paid and organic?
Do you have a conversion-based forecast model for media ROI? *
Has a keyphrase gap analysis been created?
Have you created conversion events in Google Analytics 4?
Is you organic and paid search strategy (inc. Ads display network) defined?
Have you reviewed your paid media prospecting options (e.g., paid social
and programmatic)?
Has partner and influencer marketing potential been explored?
Is your TOFU content optimized and attracting visits through organic
search or social media?
Do you have SEO and organic social practices in place to attract inbound
visits?
Is your technical SEO and organic social sharing integrated into the site to
effectively attract inbound visits?
Has your website been speed benchmarked to be effective on mobile?
Has investment been made in permission-based publisher/event
organizer email campaigns?
Are you co-marketing with complementary list owners using email
marketing?
Are you using social selling, outreach and account-based marketing for
ABM? *
 ACT
Act: Prompt interactions,
subscribers and leads
Act is aimed at encouraging interactions
to generate leads. Rather than
immediately focussing on conversion,
you need to inspire interactions with
your content and social media profiles.
You can then create a plan that will
persuade site visitors to take the next
step on their buying journey.
Action points:
Review existing landing pages
qualitatively and quantitatively
(analytics and user benefit).
Decide which customer actions make
them a valuable lead.
Identify key ‘moments’ to encourage
signups.
Key performance measures:
Leads | Dwell time | Shares/comments/likes
Success factors and deliverables for this planning stage:
• Identified website improvements to make customer journeys more efficient
• Optimized landing pages and content hub to maximize conversion to lead
• Clearly defined lead scoring based on customer personas, relevance to your
business/service and level of buying intent
• A budgeted content marketing strategy to support acquisition
• An editorial calendar and campaign plans
Take the next steps and turn your plan into action
>>> Download our Customer journey mapping templates
In our customer journey mapping templates bundle, you get access to 3 resources to help
review customer journeys across the RACE Framework, including an editable version of
our customer lifecycle graphic. Easily map out customer journeys to better understand
buyer behaviour and quickly identify any snags in your digital experience.
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6 Pillars of Digital Success
1. Planning and governance
2. Goals and measurement
3. Media
4. Content
5. Experience
6. Conversational messaging
* Needed most in larger businesses
ACT
Audit of current capabilities Strategic initiatives and actions
Check the box for the activities you have in place. For the boxes that are unchecked, write your planned action in the
space below
Do you have a defined content marketing strategy?
Has your content been mapped to personas across the RACE path-to-
purchase?
Is a Generative AI governance plan defined for safe use of AI tools in place?
Do you have a method of measuring the conversion rate for different types
of leads or subscribers?
Do you have a method of assessing the quality of visitors to your website
(e.g., lead profiling and grading)?
Have you reviewed the percentage of interaction across desktop and
mobile devices and the customer journey effectiveness?
Do you have ad retargeting in place to generate leads (B2B and high-
value)?
Is your MOFU content optimized and generating leads based on
preferences?
Is relevant use of Generative AI tools defined in governance plan?
Are your landing pages optimized for generating leads (CRO)?
Do you profile for relevant nurturing (e.g., lead scoring and grading for
B2B)? *
Are your targeted, branded welcome email sequences sent to new leads?
Is your chat or community used to encourage prospect interaction?
 CONVERT Key performance measures:
Sales (on and offline-influence) | Revenue/profit | Average order value

Convert: Achieve sales online or Success factors and deliverables for this planning stage:
offline
This is the conversion from lead to sale. It • Effective email and ad nurture and retargeting process
focuses on getting your audience to take
that vital next step which turns them
• A plan to implement personalization elements to your site based on customer
into paying customers. behaviour
It’s important to remember that
• A website that is fully optimized for mobile browsing
payment can be made through online • A multichannel marketing plan that lets customers reach you through different
e-commerce transactions or offline
channels. ‘conversation marketing’ options such as email, LiveChat, and product demos
• A list of key pages to be optimized through A/B testing
Action points:
Identify conversion funnels and paths to
purchase.
Take the next steps and turn your plan into action
Understand what level of personalization
can be achieved with your current
resource. >>> Download our Website conversion optimization planner
Establish a communication process
between your marketing and
Many sites are only occasionally updated, but companies who are serious about getting
development teams. the best returns from their websites should have a structured programme of testing. Use
our conversion optimization planner to help plan, manage, and review your tests. This
template has been created for marketers of all levels to use.

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RESOURCE
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6 Pillars of Digital Success
1. Planning and governance
2. Goals and measurement
3. Media
4. Content
5. Experience
6. Conversational messaging
* Needed most in larger businesses
CONVERT
Audit of current capabilities Strategic initiatives and actions
Check the box for the activities you have in place. For the boxes that are unchecked, write your planned action in the
space below
Do you have a structured testing plan in place?
Have you defined your CRO or personalization plan? *
Is your testing regular?
Is Google Analytics e-commerce tracking relevant for your business?
Do you use attribution to review digital channel performance? *
Is the influence of digital channels for prompting offline sales understood?
Are you investing sufficiently in Google Ads and paid social retargeting?
Is your BOFU content optimized and developed to match preferences that
nurture on the path-to-purchase?
Does your structured testing programme for CRO support growth?
Are your basket and checkout processes effective and efficient
(e-commerce businesses)?
Is multichannel selling used to support conversion (non e-commerce)?
Is your personalization effective for return visitors and customers?
Do you have an automated email nurture sequence?
Is site personalization in place and optimized, possibly including artificial
intelligence?
Are you using digital sales assist (e.g., online demonstrations, sales calls
and webinars)?
 ENGAGE Key performance measures:
Repeat purchase (lifetime value) | Satisfaction and loyalty | Advocacy

Engage: Encourage repeat Success factors and deliverables for this planning stage:
business
New customers are great, but repeat • A welcome sequence for onboarding new customers
customers are even better. Now you • A list of website elements that promote customer engagement and loyalty
need to keep adding value to your brand
experience so that buyers become brand • A refined customer service process to deal with queries through multiple channels
advocates.
• Email marketing campaigns designed to keep customers interacting with your site
This can be achieved through post-sale and your products.
nurturing, such as storytelling, case
studies and engaging social content. • A social media plan that amplifies the human element behind people who have
already bought from you.
Action points:
Outline your onboarding process using
email and online messaging
Take the next steps and turn your plan into action
Establish your multi-channel customer
service process
>>> Download our Customer retention planning guide
Identify post-sale customer data for
areas you can use in remarketing
communications
It is essential to have a proactive, well-planned approach to customer retention and
loyalty in order to increase business value and profit growth. In our guide, E-CRM specialist
Andrew Campbell explains how to create a customer retention strategy using a range of
frameworks, examples and best practice tips.

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6 Pillars of Digital Success
1. Planning and governance
2. Goals and measurement
3. Media
4. Content
5. Experience
6. Conversational messaging
* Needed most in larger businesses
ENGAGE
Audit of current capabilities Strategic initiatives and actions
Check the box for the activities you have in place. For the boxes that are unchecked, write your planned action in
the space below
Have you conducted customer research focusing on digital channel
effectiveness? *
Do you have a 90-day planning process for implementing your email contact
strategy including ‘always-on’ and campaign activity?
Are the custom dimensions set in Google Analytics used to track returning
customers? *
Is customer or email subscriber engagement tracked?
Are your customers profiled for characteristics, value and preferences?
Do you assess customer satisfaction with digital channels and loyalty drivers?
Has your use of customer lists in Google Ads and paid social been reviewed?
Have you reviewed and optimized your Google Ads brand campaigns?
Is your organic social media amplification effective for acquisition?
Is your ROFU content optimized with a retention focus for existing customers?
Is your personalization effective for return visitors and customers?
Is your customer support and care content effective (e.g., FAQs and knowledge-
bases)?
Is your on-boarding process effective for new customers?
Is the customer journey for returning visitors and customers effective?
Have loyalty drivers been researched to identify barriers to repeat purchase?
Have you reviewed the email and website or mobile app you use for customer
on-boarding for effectiveness?
Are your customer newsletters targeted and optimized?
Are you using targeted customer email communications?
Are you using a customer communications preference centre and privacy
options? *
Are you effectively using social media to develop customer communities? *
Continue building your skills, upskilling your team or growing your business
You now know what it takes to create a digital strategy. You’ve organized
your activities into the RACE Planning Framework, but you may not be
utilizing everything available to you at each stage. That’s where we come
in. Smart Insights offers guides, templates, and e-learning modules
across all channels of digital marketing.

So, whether you need to refine your personas, start using a new social
media platform or stay up to date with the best SEO practices, we’ve got you
covered. We offer in-depth actionable advice within our premium member
resources to help you take the action points in this guide even further.

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