{"id":5676,"date":"2025-02-20T11:11:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T11:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/v2.smartinsights.com\/?post_type=guides&#038;p=5676"},"modified":"2025-02-25T14:31:48","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T14:31:48","slug":"digital-marketing-plan-template","status":"publish","type":"guides","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/","title":{"rendered":"Free digital marketing plan template"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>How will this digital marketing planning template help me and my business?<\/h3>\n<p>Do you have an integrated digital marketing strategy? Our research shows that many businesses don't have a structured digital marketing plan, yet they are doing digital marketing!<\/p>\n<p>Why is this a problem? Consider the pitfalls of what you\u2019re missing if you don\u2019t have a plan addressing the opportunities of modern digital marketing:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You\u2019re likely to be tactical, lacking a strategic approach to integrated digital communication<\/li>\n<li>Your competition, who are more effective in acquiring customers using digital marketing leave you behind<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019ll have a weak customer focus, which will make you hard to stand out to your potential customers<\/li>\n<li>Your goals will be poorly defined and tracking limited<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019ll have poor budget and resource allocation - wasting money, time and resources<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"product-benefits\" class=\"product-info\">\n<p>This digital marketing plan template is our most popular download. It's based on our co-founder, Dr. Dave Chaffey's twenty-plus years experience of creating and reviewing digital marketing plans for companies, small and large, across many sectors.<\/p>\n<h3>How is this resource structured?<\/h3>\n<p>This template is structured to help you create an annual digital marketing plan or a 90-day plan to rapidly get started. It's available both as a PDF download and Word document you can edit to audit and set priorities for your digital strategies.<\/p>\n<p>You can use the tables of key activities to audit your digital marketing activities across RACE and identify priority initiatives which will be core to your strategy.<\/p>\n<p>The template covers the two parts of the RACE Growth System<\/p>\n<p>1. <strong>The RACE Planning Framework<\/strong>: defines the essential activities and measures businesses need to master to survive and thrive in today\u2019s marketing world.\u00a0 This is structured around the 5 parts of the RACE forming a classic marketing conversion funnel.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Plan:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Create a digital marketing strategy<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Reach:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Grow your audience online<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Act:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Encourage brand interactions and leads<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Convert:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Increase online and offline sales through optimization<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Engage:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Build customer loyalty and advocacy<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"product-benefits\" class=\"product-info\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-167489\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RACE-Digital-Marketing-Plan-Funnel-2023.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"419\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RACE-Digital-Marketing-Plan-Funnel-2023.png 1117w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RACE-Digital-Marketing-Plan-Funnel-2023-550x659.png 550w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RACE-Digital-Marketing-Plan-Funnel-2023-700x838.png 700w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RACE-Digital-Marketing-Plan-Funnel-2023-125x150.png 125w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RACE-Digital-Marketing-Plan-Funnel-2023-768x920.png 768w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RACE-Digital-Marketing-Plan-Funnel-2023-250x299.png 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 419px) 100vw, 419px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the downloadable template we show how each part of RACE is broken down into 5 activities to give 25 key processes, broken down further into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/digital-marketing-strategy\/how-to-use-standard-operating-procedures-sops-for-marketing\/\">Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for digital marketing<\/a> which cover both strategy and optimizing digital media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>2. <strong>The RACE OSA improvement process<\/strong>: defines the three steps needed to build and implement your growth plan - either for your overall marketing plan or for an individual channel, such as organic search, social media or email marketing.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-161695\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/W9hIzsUz5SGlX4WBp1SvvrA87cexnY2fsKJXsePD.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"346\" height=\"243\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/W9hIzsUz5SGlX4WBp1SvvrA87cexnY2fsKJXsePD.png 970w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/W9hIzsUz5SGlX4WBp1SvvrA87cexnY2fsKJXsePD-550x387.png 550w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/W9hIzsUz5SGlX4WBp1SvvrA87cexnY2fsKJXsePD-700x492.png 700w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/W9hIzsUz5SGlX4WBp1SvvrA87cexnY2fsKJXsePD-150x105.png 150w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/W9hIzsUz5SGlX4WBp1SvvrA87cexnY2fsKJXsePD-768x540.png 768w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/W9hIzsUz5SGlX4WBp1SvvrA87cexnY2fsKJXsePD-250x176.png 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 346px) 100vw, 346px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the editable downloadable template we show 9 steps, three for each part of OSA to make it quick and simple to create a plan.<\/p>\n<div id=\"product-benefits\" class=\"product-info\">\n<p>Our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/improve\/digital-marketing-strategy-planning-toolkit\/\">digital marketing strategy toolkit<\/a> for premium members contains more detailed Word, Excel and PowerPoint templates and sector examples for creating a detailed digital marketing plan needed by larger businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Smart Insights defined the RACE Framework in 2010 to provide a simple, yet comprehensive structure for defining digital marketing strategies and improving always-on lifecycle marketing which are so important to marketing success today. Since we first published this template, we're proud that it has been downloaded over 1 million times and has proved popular with members since it has a simple structure which shows you which digital marketing success factors your plan should cover. It is still relevant today for the latest developments in lifecycle marketing and MarTech including Generative AI which we cover in our practical training courses and free prompt template.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our most popular free resource &#8211;  this RACE planning template provides a structure for you to begin creating or refining your digital marketing strategy with our Reach, Act, Convert, Engage (RACE) framework&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":168580,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_glsr_average":0,"_glsr_ranking":0,"_glsr_reviews":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5676","guides","type-guides","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","guidetype-template"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Free RACE Digital Marketing Plan Template (Word and PDF)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Quickly create a digital marketing plan using our free RACE digital marketing planning template to plan and manage your strategy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Free RACE Digital Marketing Plan Template (Word and PDF)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Quickly create a digital marketing plan using our free RACE digital marketing planning template to plan and manage your strategy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/smartinsights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-25T14:31:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@smartinsights\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/\",\"name\":\"Free RACE Digital Marketing Plan Template (Word and PDF)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Digital-marketing-planning-template-guide-cover-creator-pdf.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-20T11:11:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-25T14:31:48+00:00\",\"description\":\"Quickly create a digital marketing plan using our free RACE digital marketing planning template to plan and manage your strategy\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Digital-marketing-planning-template-guide-cover-creator-pdf.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Digital-marketing-planning-template-guide-cover-creator-pdf.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Guides\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Free digital marketing plan template\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/\",\"name\":\"Smart Insights\",\"description\":\"Digital Marketing &gt; The Marketing Strategy Blog\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Free RACE Digital Marketing Plan Template (Word and PDF)","description":"Quickly create a digital marketing plan using our free RACE digital marketing planning template to plan and manage your strategy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Free RACE Digital Marketing Plan Template (Word and PDF)","og_description":"Quickly create a digital marketing plan using our free RACE digital marketing planning template to plan and manage your strategy","og_url":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/","og_site_name":"Smart Insights","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/smartinsights","article_modified_time":"2025-02-25T14:31:48+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@smartinsights","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/","url":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/","name":"Free RACE Digital Marketing Plan Template (Word and PDF)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Digital-marketing-planning-template-guide-cover-creator-pdf.jpg","datePublished":"2025-02-20T11:11:02+00:00","dateModified":"2025-02-25T14:31:48+00:00","description":"Quickly create a digital marketing plan using our free RACE digital marketing planning template to plan and manage your strategy","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Digital-marketing-planning-template-guide-cover-creator-pdf.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Digital-marketing-planning-template-guide-cover-creator-pdf.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-plan-template\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Guides","item":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Free digital marketing plan template"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/","name":"Smart Insights","description":"Digital Marketing &gt; The Marketing Strategy Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/guides\/5676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/guides"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/guides"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/guides\/5676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169719,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/guides\/5676\/revisions\/169719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}