Digital marketing strategy template – free planning tool

Use our digital marketing strategy template integrated across the RACE Framework to plan and get ahead in your digital marketing

We all know the old saying “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”, but when it comes to digital marketing, this really is the case. Heading into 2022, it has never been more important than it is now to create a digital marketing strategy template so you can plan, manage and optimize your online activities.

Today, digital media is vital when it comes to driving leads and sales, meaning marketers need to understand how best to engage and convert online audiences. Despite this, our research shows that many businesses still don’t have a digital marketing plan.

As a result, companies are missing out on the benefits of having a digital marketing plan integrated into their overall marketing plan or as a separate roadmap for digital transformation. At a time when marketers are increasingly hungry for guidance, this isn’t a great position to be in. Luckily, Smart Insights Free Members can download their free digital marketing plan template when they sign up.

Optimize your strategy and planning to boost your results

If you’re looking for new ideas to boost your marketing strategy and planning, why not take a look at our RACE Framework planning structure and marketing resources? Free Members can get to grips with the RACE Framework when they download their free digital marketing plan template which comes packed with next steps and strategy recommendations to help you boost your marketing performance. [si_blog_banner_cta]

Start planning today with our free digital marketing strategy template

Our PDF digital marketing plan template will take you through all of the essential online marketing activities that you need to work on in order to deliver a cohesive and successful strategy.

Ultimately, the goal of this template is to enable you to create detailed and actionable digital marketing plans that are based on your KPIs and current performance. Having a plan that integrates different channels, tactics and actions is more likely to deliver success, but you need to document it first.

To access the template, simply signup for a Free Membership and enjoy our range of free resources, all of which are designed to help you grow your marketing skills and get results.

Strategic marketing planning for your business

The template will be beneficial if you’re involved in planning and developing the direction that digital marketing is going for your business or for clients. This means it can be beneficial for:

• Company owners and directors
• Managers who are responsible for increasing how much digital channels contribute to their company
• Heads of marketing, such a Chief Marketing Officer, VP of Marketing, Chief Customer Officer and Marketing Director
• Consultants of agency account managers

It is structured around our RACE Framework, allowing you to assess what key marketing activities you need to consider for each part of RACE. This will give your plan structure and ensure you ultimately refer all marketing planning back to RACE so you don’t miss any opportunities.

The RACE Framework

We’ve structured the template around the RACE Framework in order to provide a planning system that covers all the important areas of digital marketing planning across the customer lifecycle.

We go into more detail about RACE in our introduction blog and you can find out how to use the framework to organize a digital marketing campaign plan in our helpful breakdown.

The RACE Framework and the planning template both reference a simplified version of PR Smith’s SOSTAC® Planning System. We use this because it’s a really great framework that is simple, memorable and logical, meaning it can benefit you in your everyday marketing planning.

The simplified version of SOSTAC® that we cover in the template is:

• Opportunity: Review the current contribution of digital channels to your business by refining dashboards and set future objectives that are based on an in-depth marketplace review.
• Strategy: Create an overall digital channel strategy or a specific strategy that is focused on customer acquisition (Reach), Conversion (Act and Convert) and customer retention and loyalty (long-terms engagement).
• Action: Details of specific tactics to implement the strategy such as planning and integrating content marketing, SEO, social media and email into marketing campaigns.

We use this simplified approach to SOSTAC® as we’ve found – through our collective experience in creating many different digital marketing plans – that it works best when you set objectives for digital marketing activities as part of the process of reviewing existing performance and reviewing the KPIs you use for control. It can also be difficult to separate strategy and tactics so this approach takes that into account.

Learn more about using the RACE Framework to plan your marketing activities by downloading our free digital marketing plan template, integrated across the 5 stages of RACE planning.

What’s more, as a Smart Insights Free Member, you’ll get access to a range of free resources to help hone your channel tactics and plan your next steps to implementing an integrated marketing strategy through the RACE Framework.

Our RACE Practical Digital Strategy Learning Path

If you’re planning your digital marketing strategy and looking to accelerate your businesses’ growth, we recommend accessing our RACE Practical Digital Strategy Learning Path.

This dedicated strategic planning Learning Path guides you through a step-by-step process to plan, manage and optimize your marketing, proven to drive growth for your business at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

Find out more about how our RACE Practical Digital Strategy Learning Path for Business Members can transform your marketing strategy to acquire and retain more customers.