{"id":169811,"date":"2025-05-06T12:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T11:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?p=169811"},"modified":"2025-06-09T09:56:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T08:56:50","slug":"digital-marketing-marketing-framework","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/digital-marketing-strategy\/digital-marketing-marketing-framework\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the best digital marketing \/ marketing framework?"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the RACE Framework can help you improve your digital marketing<\/h2>\n
Marketing frameworks are really useful tools to help us plan, manage and optimize marketing. They\u2019re particularly useful for digital marketing, since it\u2019s so complex today because of all the digital channels available. This is shown by our customer lifecycle visual (below), which suggests the many different touchpoints that potential communications may have with their audiences.<\/div>\n
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The example shown in this visual is for a B2B scenario where different nurture activities are used to help convert interest in a product or service through to purchase. Many similar stages are involved with B2C marketing.<\/div>\n
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In this article, I\u2019ll explain how and why we created the Smart Insights RACE Framework for online and multichannel marketing and at the same time, explain some of the key features of marketing frameworks. When I created RACE, it was my view that it would be useful to develop a framework that worked better for digital channels than classic marketing frameworks, but since customers use both physical and digital channels, the framework would work for both.<\/div>\n
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\n \n Free digital marketing plan template\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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Free digital marketing plan template<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE Framework. Join Smart Insights for Free to download our digital marketing plan template today<\/p>\n

Access the Free digital marketing plan template<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div>\n

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We will also look at different types of frameworks, with examples and consider some of their strengths and weaknesses.<\/div>\n
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Types of marketing frameworks<\/h3>\n
Within both marketing and specifically digital marketing, there are different frameworks that can be applied to different situations.<\/div>\n
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These are the different types of framework that I have seen most often:<\/div>\n
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  1. Consumer behaviour framework<\/b> - this describes how users respond to communications and buy, i.e., it\u2019s the steps of a buying process. The first visual in this article is a consumer behaviour framework. The AIDA marketing framework<\/a> is the best known example of a behavioural framework, sometimes known by academics as a \u2018hierarchy of response\u2019 model.<\/li>\n
  2. Marketing activity planning frameworks<\/b>. We originally created RACE to help provide a comprehensive breakdown of key activities that to be controlled for effective marketing today. This is useful when you\u2019re looking to perform a\u00a0digital marketing audit<\/a>\u00a0to review your marketing to identify which activities you need to improve. As I\u2019ll explain later, the more detailed breakdown of RACE contains 25 key activities and we define further Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to expand on that, so that marketers can prioritize which activities they need to work on as part of marketing planning.<\/li>\n
  3. Marketing process framework<\/b>. This defines the stages or steps involved in creating and implementing a strategy and plan. Although RACE is now well-known as a planning framework, it it fact has a process component too - this defines the series of steps that are needed to create the digital marketing plan.\u00a0 The second part of RACE defined in our\u00a0in-depth article on the RACE Framework and process<\/a>\u00a0describes a process of:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n