Would you be surprised if we tell you that digital display is projected to grow at a 15.5% CAGR? Moreover, search may grow at 12.2%. And you know what? Search accounts for a whopping 40.9% of the digital ad and marketing worldwide.
In fact, digital marketing budgets grew by 10% across businesses between 2023 and 2024. So, what does this suggest? To us, it looks like a race to marketing success.In the world of online paid marketing, everyone wants to grab a bigger share of the market, and that’s only possible by:
- Growing your audience base
- Retaining the existing audience
- Converting prospects to sales
Through and through these 3 points, there’s one important factor — COMMUNICATION. And you ace it with R.A.C.E. To help you do it, we are going to learn —
- What is it?
- Why does it work?
- How can you use it?
The R.A.C.E Framework
R.A.C.E. stands for Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage. Think of it as a communication planning model that helps you plan your digital marketing efforts. The framework aligns itself perfectly with the user’s purchase journey. Let’s say it’s a smart way to push your potential buyers through the marketing funnel, eventually converting them and increasing your sales.
Here’s why it works so well!
1. Customer-Focused
Any marketing framework, let alone R.A.C.E., needs to be focused on customers if it wants to work. It follows a customer’s buyer journey through and through. As a result, it aligns the intent, tone, and language perfectly with what your customer is looking for. The framework helps you meet your customers where they are.
2. Multi-Channel Approach
Although you may have one channel where most of your customers are accessible, there’s no harm in trying to connect with them on other channels. In fact, each channel serves a specific purpose.
For instance, social media platforms serve as great mediums for awareness and information sharing but may not be suitable for making personalized offers. In this case, emails may be more suitable. Similarly, you can’t reach out to customers who’ve abandoned their carts via Instagram. You will want to retarget them with email or personal messaging mediums and treat them to a good discount so that they come back to you.
The R.A.C.E. framework takes all of this into consideration and adopts a multi-channel approach. This ensures that you have:
- More than one medium to talk to your consumers
- More than one chance to make an impression
- Personalize messaging
- Multiple touchpoints in the consumer journey
3. Commercial Framework
The framework works on strict KPIs to get the best R.O.I.s for your marketing efforts. This makes it smart, measurable, and actionable. The data further can be further analyzed for A/B testing if necessary. Consequently, you are data-informed as a business, which helps you become data-driven.
Also Read : 3 Reasons Why Your B2B Marketing Strategy Framework Is Not Generating Quality Leads
How To Put It To Action?
Like any framework, R.A.C.E. is a step-by-step process. Here’s how you can put the wheels in motion:
[P.S.: We’re going to create a sample plan for selling personal branding services]
Reach To Build Awareness
Start by creating brand awareness and visibility. The goal is to put your brand or business on the map for your customers to find you. This particular stage of the framework aligns with the ‘Exploration’ stage in the buyer funnel.
So naturally, your task here is to make the most of search engines and social media networks with search engine optimization and social media marketing. Think of creating and publishing blogs and posts to share the what, when, how, and why of your brand. Place special emphasis on your values and process while smartly plugging in your products or services. You may also want to invest in ads and other marketing tactics.
Now, you will also need to track some KPIs to measure the effectiveness of your strategies. These could include the following:
- Unique visitors
- Reach and impressions
- Engagement and shares
- Increase in following
Step 1: Start creating content on LinkedIn and Instagram around topics like:
- Why invest in personal branding?
- Who is it for?
- What should the goals be?
Also Read : How Evoking Emotions and Different Appeals is the Key to a Successful Advertising Strategy
Act To Convert
This is the time you encourage interactions on your website and social media. The goal here is quality lead generation so that you can nurture them towards sales. This part of the framework corresponds to the ‘Decision Making’ phase in the buyer cycle. So get more specific and make it worth the visitor’s time. It’s also the chance to test what’s working for you and against you and optimize it.
Optimize the C.T.A. on your website to make them directive and actionable. Make sure your website is mobile-response and offers a seamless user experience. Create high-quality content or use interactive tools like quizzes. In short, compel them to click and share. Some of the KPIs you can consider are:
- Click-through rate
- Number of shares
- Number of visitors who completed the task
Step 2: Start creating high-quality content covering your case studies, throw in some figures, share actionable tips, and end with a banger C.T.A. Additionally, create polls to see who’s interested in building their personal brand or newsletters.
Also Read: Unleashing Growth with P.A.C.E. Marketing Framework
Convert to Get In The Sales
Convert corresponds to the ‘Purchase’ stage in the buyer cycle. This means you should focus on capitalizing on your marketing efforts. Your goal is to push the customer to the final step of their purchase, online or offline, which is making the payment.
How do you do that? Think of personalized discounts, easy checkouts, and lead scoring. Once the consumer is ready to buy, make sure that:
- You have secure payment gateways
- Prompt delivery and servicing
- Trained customer service team
- You are up for additional support and repairs
It is your chance to show, in actions, how much you value your customers. At this stage, you may want to consider metrics like:
- Average Order Value (A.O.V.)
- Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
- Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate
Step 3: Reach out to your leads and pitch your services while offering them a personalized service package. Solve their concerns and onboard them.
Read More : Value Of Lead Scoring In B2B Digital Marketing
Engage for Loyalty
As a business or brand, you should focus on forging long-term quality relationships with your customers. After all, you don’t want them to shop just once, right? You want them to come back to you. So, get your customers to buy from you again, refer others, use social media, and so on. You can build customer loyalty through direct contacts, emails, social media, and so on.
And what should you track?
- Referral rate
- Consumer satisfaction via surveys and feedback
- Upselling and cross-selling rate
- Repeat purchase
Step 4: Ask your client to share feedback or suggest someone who may want to use your service. If you offer additional services like blog writing or social media management and feel it’s the right time for your client to grow, pitch them.
Wrapping Up
So, there is a complete breakdown of one of the most effective marketing frameworks in practice today. It’s straightforward, simple, and actionable. And the best part? It applies to both growing and established businesses and brands equally.
Yet, if you face some challenges, Impulse Digital is here to guide you with our 34 years of experience! Our experience and effort to stay ahead of the curve make us just the right digital marketing partner for you.
