Our digital marketing planning templates and Learning Paths are our most popular with Smart Insights members 👊👌. This Help article recommends the best resources to use for different situations and sectors.
Quick start - use an example plan for different sectors
The quickest way to create a plan - if you don’t want the structured guidance available in our Learning Paths - is to download our blank and example documents by searching our resource library. You can amend these to quickly create your plan using our RACE Framework.
⏲️ Top Tip: You can also review relevant example plans by selecting by toolkit in the Guides and Templates library. For example, check the B2B, Branding, E-commerce and Sector Technology Innovation toolkits.
Recommended process for creating a detailed plan
To create an effective plan, it's best to think about the entire process both for creating the plan AND the implementation. Within the RACE Growth System, this is RACE OSA, with typical activities shown below.
Opportunity
To start creating your plan we recommend you:
Perform a maturity review of your digital marketing capabilities
This will highlight the key areas where you should focus improvements. You may have already done this with our free benchmarking templates or graders.
Reviewing what digital marketing is already delivering for your organization should be part of this. Many of our members need to start by configuring Google Analytics 4 or creating a RACE digital marketing dashboard. Tools to help you are available in our Google Analytics toolkit.
Complete a detailed health check audit across the RACE lifecycle
Use our health check audit spreadsheet template to identify weaknesses and set priorities. This format works well for small businesses and can be used by agencies and consultants for rapidly reviewing their clients' digital marketing and making practical recommendations.
Review business performance and marketplace opportunities
We recommend the TOWs format for this - see our Marketing SWOT analysis and strategy prioritization workbook template. This is most suitable for medium to large businesses.
Strategy
To define and present your digital marketing strategy we have a choice of template formats - these are our most popular downloads:
⚠️ These are both detailed resources since they cover all the bases for a complete, comprehensive plan, so you can delete the parts that aren’t relevant to you.
We also have simpler templates for different parts of the planning process that are recommended in our Learning Paths, like the Marketing SWOT analysis and strategy prioritization workbook templates.
Action
To implement your plan, use our 90-day planning template. Note - this is more detailed than the free membership template you may have used and is suitable for all types of businesses.
Planning your digital marketing in 90-day intervals is recommended since it helps you focus on a shorter and more manageable timeframe, compared to planning for a whole year. This approach enables you to execute strategic initiatives from your annual plan within a practical period, that is more feasible than a monthly timeframe.
Review our index of templates for different audits and action plan templates.
Agencies and consultants with Pro membership can white-label our downloadable templates for their business to use on client projects. View our Index of more than 100 templates covering the full customer lifecycle.
Marketers and business owners in organizations of all sizes use these templates to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. You can review the index of templates to prioritize improvements that are most relevant to your business.
Relevant Learning Paths
For more structured support, learning and guidance for each part of the planning process, complete our RACE Digital Marketing Planning Learning Path, which recommends the most relevant templates for each stage.
For larger organizations, we have additional guidance on managing change in larger-scale transformation projects: