Digital marketing strategy and planning Word template

Using the RACE Planning System to get ahead in your digital marketing

The first edition of my Internet, Marketing, Strategy and Planning book from 2000 contained a template for creating what we then called an Internet Marketing Plan.

Ten long, but exciting years later, marketers are understandably even more hungry for guidance, given the importance of digital media today. So our RACE planning system is a template based on ten plus years experience of creating and reviewing digital marketing plans for companies and helping students develop them. Thanks to Dan Bosomworth, one of my co-founders of Smart Insights for his help in shaping this – you can see the template at the end of this page.

Download Template Download the free Planning template (basic members)

You can download the template from this page using the links above when you are registered and logged-in as a Smart Insights Basic member: View more information on the marketing planning template.

Expert members can also download a Word version of the document to amend to create their own plans which is part of a set of 8 templates which are part of the digital marketing planning toolkit.

The RACE planning system

Our planning process follows the SOSTAC® model developed by PR Smith, Dave’s co-author on Emarketing Excellence. It’s a great framework since it’s simple, memorable and logical. Our RACE framework covers the key areas of the Digital marketing planning across the customer lifecycle:

About SOSTAC®

SOSTAC® stands for:

• Situation – where are we now?
• Objectives – where do we want to be?
• Strategy – how do we get there?
• Tactics – how exactly do we get there?
• Action – what is our plan?
• Control – did we get there?

Going into more detail, this is the main sections we cover in the template:

1. Situation analysis. Where are we now?

Understanding your online marketplace
The immediate, or micro-environment
A. Our customers
B. Our market
C. Our competitors
D. Intermediaries and potential customers
E. Wider macro environment
F. Our own capabilities
G. Internet SWOT summary

2. Goal-setting. Where do we want to be?
Setting useful, actionable objectives

3. Strategy. How are you going to achieve the goals?
Setting a meaningful strategy

A. Targeting
B. Positioning
C. Proposition and the marketing mix
D. Brand strategy
E. Online representation or presence.
F. Content and engagement strategy.
G. Acquisition communications strategy
H. Conversion strategy
I. Retention communications strategy
J. Data strategy
K. Multichannel integration strategy

4. Tactics, action and control
Tactics
Control
Governance and resourcing of digital channels

5. Executive summary

We have another more in-depth post on SOSTAC