RACE Framework Digital Marketing Planning Training Course

Course overview

Marketing teams often run isolated campaigns without a shared plan for attracting prospects, converting them into leads or buyers, retaining customers, and measuring commercial impact. The result is uneven channel investment, unclear ownership, weak hand-offs between marketing and sales, and reporting that lists activity rather than demonstrating contribution to pipeline, revenue, retention, or customer value. This course gives marketing professionals a practical structure for connecting digital activity to measurable business outcomes using the RACE Framework: Reach, Act, Convert and Engage.

Participants learn to build a RACE-based digital marketing plan from market situation through execution and optimisation. They assess current performance, define SMART objectives and KPIs, map audience journeys, prioritise channels, create content and campaign plans, allocate budgets, and specify measurement requirements. The course covers practical use of Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Looker Studio and HubSpot to evaluate channel performance, build dashboards, track conversion paths and improve lifecycle communications. Particular attention is given to selecting metrics that support decisions rather than vanity reporting.

Instructor-led workshops, channel-planning exercises, analytics demonstrations and team critique sessions turn the framework into a usable operating plan. Participants work with a realistic business case or their own organisation’s context throughout the week. They leave with a completed RACE digital marketing planning pack containing a situation assessment, audience journey map, objectives and KPI framework, channel and content plan, budget assumptions, measurement dashboard specification, 90-day action plan and optimisation backlog.

The course suits marketers who already understand core digital channels and now need a disciplined planning method that can be presented credibly to commercial leaders, agencies, sales teams and finance stakeholders.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply the RACE Framework to structure an integrated Reach, Act, Convert and Engage marketing plan
• Audit digital channel performance using traffic, engagement, conversion and retention evidence
• Define SMART marketing objectives and KPI trees linked to commercial outcomes
• Map audience journeys, intent stages and conversion barriers across priority touchpoints
• Prioritise paid, owned and earned channels using an audience-channel fit matrix
• Create a 90-day content, campaign and lifecycle communications plan
• Build a measurement dashboard specification using GA4 events, conversion metrics and Looker Studio views
• Produce a costed RACE planning pack with ownership, milestones, test hypotheses and optimisation actions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Digital Marketing Managers — who need a repeatable method for coordinating channels against revenue and retention goals
• Marketing Managers — who must turn annual marketing objectives into accountable digital activity plans
• Performance Marketing Specialists — who need to connect campaign optimisation to the full customer journey
• Content Marketing Managers — who must plan content by audience intent, lifecycle stage and conversion purpose
• CRM and Lifecycle Marketing Managers — who need to strengthen post-conversion engagement and customer value programmes
• Marketing Agency Account Managers — who must present integrated channel recommendations and measurement plans to clients

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical familiarity with core digital marketing concepts, including websites, email marketing, social media, paid search, SEO, landing pages and conversion rates. Experience reading basic campaign reports or web analytics is useful, as is access to a laptop with a spreadsheet application and browser-based tools. Participants do not need to be GA4 administrators, data analysts, coders, designers or HubSpot power users. This is an intermediate planning course, so complete beginners should first gain foundational knowledge of digital channels and campaign terminology before attending.

Training methodology

The instructor introduces each RACE stage through worked examples, short demonstrations and facilitated discussion of real planning decisions. Participants then apply the methods in structured workshops: auditing a digital presence, mapping journeys, setting KPI trees, selecting channels, drafting content and lifecycle activity, and defining dashboard requirements. Teams critique one another’s plans against commercial objectives and available evidence. GA4, Google Ads, Looker Studio and HubSpot examples are used to show how plans translate into operating data. The final day is devoted to refining an organisation-specific or case-based 90-day application plan.

Course outline

Day 1: RACE Framework foundations and diagnostic planning

• RACE Framework stages: Reach, Act, Convert and Engage
• Digital marketing planning hierarchy from business goals to channel actions
• Situation analysis using SWOT, competitor review and channel inventory
• Customer value proposition assessment for digital touchpoints
• SMART objective setting for acquisition, conversion and retention
• KPI trees linking marketing measures to commercial outcomes
• Baseline measurement and data-quality checks before planning

Workshop: Participants complete a RACE situation assessment and draft a KPI tree for a selected business case or their own organisation.

Day 2: Reach: audience acquisition and channel planning

• Audience segmentation by needs, value, behaviour and purchase intent
• Persona development and jobs-to-be-done messaging inputs
• Search intent analysis for SEO and paid search planning
• Paid, owned and earned media channel selection
• Google Ads campaign structure and keyword-to-landing-page alignment
• Reach-stage content formats, distribution cadence and editorial themes
• Channel prioritisation using impact, effort, confidence and cost criteria

Workshop: Participants build an audience-channel fit matrix and a Reach-stage campaign brief with prioritised acquisition tactics.

Day 3: Act: engagement, lead capture and consideration

• Consideration-stage journey mapping and micro-conversion design
• Landing page information hierarchy and call-to-action design
• Content offers, webinars, tools and lead magnets for value exchange
• GA4 engagement events and key event configuration principles
• Conversion rate optimisation hypotheses and test prioritisation
• Lead capture forms, progressive profiling and consent considerations
• Marketing-to-sales hand-off criteria and lead qualification definitions

Workshop: Participants map an Act-stage journey and produce a landing-page improvement brief with events, micro-conversions and test hypotheses.

Day 4: Convert: revenue performance and measurement

• Conversion-stage funnel analysis from lead to sale
• Offer architecture, pricing cues and purchase-friction reduction
• Google Analytics 4 conversion paths, attribution views and audiences
• Campaign tagging using UTM parameters and naming conventions
• Budget allocation, forecast assumptions and return-on-ad-spend calculations
• Looker Studio dashboard design for executive and channel reporting
• Performance review cadences and decision rules for optimisation

Workshop: Participants create a conversion measurement specification and a costed channel budget with dashboard views for weekly review.

Day 5: Engage: retention, lifecycle value and implementation

• Post-purchase journey mapping and customer lifecycle stages
• HubSpot lists, workflows and lifecycle communication triggers
• Email nurture, onboarding, cross-sell and re-engagement programme design
• Customer retention, repeat purchase and lifetime-value metrics
• Voice-of-customer feedback loops and service recovery signals
• RACE governance, roles, agency management and planning cadences
• 90-day roadmap, experiment backlog and implementation risk management

Workshop: Participants assemble and present a complete RACE planning pack, including a 90-day roadmap, owners, measures and optimisation backlog.

Tools & standards covered

Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Looker Studio, HubSpot

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions