FREE WEBINAR: Preparing your 2025 Digital Marketing Strategy with RACE

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. 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 into digital marketing trends for 2024 shows that many businesses (around 40%) 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…

What are the essential parts of a multichannel marketing plan template?

Multichannel marketing, or omnichannel marketing, is the process of utilizing online and offline marketing communications channels to target and engage with your customers. As outlined in our popular Learning Path module, structure a plan using the RACE Planning framework, the purpose of a multichannel marketing strategy is to empower marketers and managers to plan, manage and optimize the resources needed to achieve business sales targets. The timeframe is typically annual but potentially longer-term, such as 18 months to three years. Examples of communications channels could include, for example: Websites Physical stores Catalogs E-mail marketing TV Text messaging Blogging Direct mail The goal is to deliver leads and sales targets for defined products and services, which can apply to an organization as a whole, or a single market if there are multiple markets and product or service categories. An effective omnichannel approach to marketing…

What is PR Smith's SOSTAC® marketing planning model, what is the RACE Growth System, and how do you use them to win more customers?

If you don't know PR Smith's SOSTAC® model, it's worth getting to know if you're involved with planning marketing strategies or campaigns. SOSTAC® was voted the third most popular model in the CIM poll on marketing models because it's easy to remember and it makes it easy to structure plans for different planning activities. So, whether you're creating an overall marketing or digital marketing strategy or improving individual channel tactics like SEO or email marketing, SOSTAC® is your friend. In this article, we will talk through applying the SOSTAC® planning model to your marketing strategy, with the RACE Growth System.

What is SOSTAC®?

SOSTAC® is a planning model, originally developed in the 1990s to help with marketing planning by PR Smith, who is my co-author on Emarketing…

Marketing plan integrating the RACE Framework alongside PR Smith's SOSTAC® planning model

Given the increasingly omnichannel nature of marketing today, applying an effective, data-driven approach to your marketing strategy is more important than ever. But it can be difficult finding a structure that works for your team and integrates your objectives across your customers' journeys. That's where SOSTAC® and the RACE Framework come in. For marketers looking to rapidly grow their businesses through an insights-driven, efficient and streamlined marketing strategy, we recommend utilizing the Smart Insights RACE framework to get started. This popular structure enables marketing managers and teams to critically evaluate each stage of their marketing funnels across the customer lifecycle of Plan - Reach - Act - Convert - and Engage. SOSTAC® is another widely used tool for marketing and business planning.  The positioning of the SOSTAC® planning model divides up the close working that agile digital marketers seek to create…

Digital transformation strategy to grow your business: Our recommended planning frameworks to implement your successful digital transformation

More marketers than ever are fueling growth through digital transformation. But with the stakes so high, we want to make sure you get your digital transformation strategy right, first time. That's we're here to guide you through it. Discover the success factors for creating a digital transformation strategy to grow your business, read-up on the implementation process for your digital transformation next steps, and explore our latest digital transformation research.

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Why create a digital transformation strategy?

Our research shows that today many businesses are realizing the imperative for digital transformation; to compete in digital marketing data and technology, a structured process of digital transformation is needed. The need for transformation is particularly strong in larger, international brands and organisations that…

A process for creating a multichannel marketing plan combining the SOSTAC® and RACE frameworks

Amidst the highs and lows of 2020 in multichannel marketing, one thing that remains constant for managers is strategic planning and frameworks for growth. At this time of year, many are reviewing their options for growing their business using improvements to their multichannel marketing. [si_guide_block id="88063" title="Access our Quick Win – Create a multichannel marketing plan" description="Discover the secrets to structuring an effective integrated marketing plan with tried-and-tested frameworks that will save time and get results."/] Our Multichannel Marketing Growth Wheel infographic gives a visual view of key planning activities that are needed as part of the process of producing an integrated digital marketing or multichannel marketing plan. We originally created the Marketing Growth Wheel infographic back in 2012. In his post introducing the infographic, Dan…

What guides, templates, examples and Quick Wins have our members found helpful in 2019? We've taken a look at this year's most popular Smart Insights resources

Over the last year, we’ve updated and created new guides, templates, presentations and Quick Wins in order to help you better develop your marketing skills. We always aim to provide the most up-to-date information and advice to enable you to grow your knowledge, while our practical approach means you can easily put this knowledge to use. No matter what your membership level, business or personal goals, we’ve aimed to provide you with a broad range of resources to help you achieve them. So, whether you’re trying to improve your skills, upskill your team or grow your business, you’re all set with the support of Smart Insights. You’re not the only one either, as this year has seen a huge number of people making use of our guides,…