There are a lot of different marketing approaches that businesses use today. In this post, we are going to take a look at one of them: the RACE planning system. With that in mind, let’s take a look below at all of the different elements of this so your business can get a better understanding.
The RACE planning system involves five key stages: Plan, Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage. You can see a brief outline of each stage below, including what digital marketing platforms are used in regard to each stage in the buying process.
- Plan Branded Content: Build a strategic and agile approach to digital marketing
Before the buying process begins
In today’s digital world, competition is fierce. Winning consumers requires effective Planning, Management, and Optimisation of digital channels against Smart KPIs and Defined Targets, as well as a focused investment in experiences, digital media, and content marketing. When defining new Positioning, Targeting, and Segmentation for your online value propositions, an integrated digital strategy is a must. Once you have done this, you can then engage customers at each stage of the buying process…
- Reach: Search engines, social networks, publishers, and blogs
Buyer stage: EXPLORATION
This is the part of the process whereby people are looking for information on products and services. You need to make sure you draw them to your content hub so you can educate them. You need to encourage sharing with other influencers, networks, and outposts. Using data as a service can be beneficial here to empower your efforts. Check out https://bis.lexisnexis.co.uk/nexis-daas/glossary/data-as-a-service for more information.
Important measures:
- Followers/Fans
- Value per visit
- Unique visitors
- Act: Your website, blog, community, and interactive tools
Buyer stage: DECISION MAKING
Your potential customer is trying to decide what business to choose. You need to make sure that you are worthy of finding through a content hub and customer journeys that are useful, inspirational, relevant, and generate leads.
Important measures:
- Comments/Shares
- Time on site
- Lead conversion rate/Leads
- Convert: E-commerce process, product, price, and information
Buyer stage: PURCHASE
You’re almost there. Don’t fall at the critical hurdle. You need to capitalise on marketing investment through remarketing, advertising automation, and CRO, ensuring that conversions are driven through contextual relevance.
Important measures:
- Average order value
- Profit/Revenue
- Sales (online and offline)
- Engage: Customer advocacy
Buyer stage: ADVOCACY
Finally, thrilled customers are critical because they result in referrals, repeat sales, social proof, and social media marketing. Your efforts don’t end once the sale is made – in fact, this is where marketing begins!
Important measures:
- Advocacy
- Loyalty and Satisfaction
- Repeat purchase (Lifetime value)
- PLAN – Create a digital media marketing strategy
The planning phase involves using models and forecasts to define the commercial opportunity, as well as determining the technology, resources, and strategies that are required in order to reach your targets.