Gorgeous photos, sparkling copy, beautiful UI and… no sales. Somewhere along the line precious customers are losing interest and browsing elsewhere.

If this is your experience with building a website? If so, the solution may lie in the tried-and-tested marketing model of ‘RACE’ - developed by Smart Insights, ‘RACE’ seeks to fill in the gaps in your user journey, allowing customers to flow smoothly through your marketing funnel.

Back to Basics

Let’s move offline for a second, and imagine a scene.

Imagine yourself strolling idly down your local high-street, soaking in the sights and sounds of a busy day. A patchwork of bold and bright shop-fronts line the main thoroughfare. Up ahead a thriving market square is bustling with customers.

As we amble on towards the marketplace, certain events and actions will likely lead us to make consumer decisions, each of which can be applied to the RACE framework.

Step 1: Reach

“Apples! Apples for a fiver! Get your apples here!” roars a gruff-sounding Greengrocer, perching on a stool up ahead. Whilst his opening gambit might have startled you, as you wander past his stall you slow down to inspect the baskets, neatly arranged in baskets.

The Greengrocer hopes to grab the public’s attention with his loud Sales Pitch. When comparing this approach to digital marketing, such a Sales Pitch might be comparable to:

  • A paid Ad on Facebook
  • A banner ad on a related website
  • An affiliate influencer on YouTube promoting you.

Email is also a legitimate way to try and draw initial interest from a potential customer, however complexities such as GDPR in the case of this example let’s assume that the Greengrocer was complet

If we think of of ourselves as a brand now, crafting compelling sales pitches may net us the following:

  • Increased awareness of our business and the products/services offerred
  • Increased traffic to our website

Continuing on your way, the Grocer’s cries might have nested the idea of juicy apples in your head, leading you to buy a sweet treat on the way home, or pick up a punnet next time you wander past.

Pitching your services online can be much more nuanced. On the World-Wide Web there are almost infinite numbers of ‘streets’ to shout on, such as:

  • Social Media (i.e: via Facebook or Instagram ads)
  • Your own website (i.e: Blog posts)
  • Email campaigns
  • Influencer Marketing (attempting get your product promoted for a cost by people with clout in your specific industry)
  • Physical mediums (i.e: advertising in a local Newspaper, or on a local Radio Station)

With so many avenues to pursue, how do we decide where to advertise? Building a buyer persona is a great first step:

Buyer Personas help define the common values, interests and concerns of the customers you want to serve, so you can craft a clear picture of their goals and behaviours. Utilising a solid persona, you can carefully select which marketing mediums would have the most impact on your client base.

In a nutshell

The ‘Reach’ phase is aimed towards gaining initial contact with your target audience; ‘Buyer personas’, can help you in this process by painting a clear picture of which digital channels your audience might use.

Step 2: Act

Walking through the market again on a different day, you spy the Greengrocer at his stall again. You’re not quite in the mood for apples, but you wonder what else he has in stock. Curious, you make a beeline for his stall

Think about how you act when you are in a physical shop - do you run in and buy the first thing you see? Chances are you walk around slowly, taking in each product of interest as you form an opinion of your experience there.

When a customer decides to enter your website, chances are they are expressing passive interest in the brand or service offered:

When a potential customer is on your site, think of it as a sales conversation happening with your business. Your site acts as a like a shop assistant in a physical store1

In order to nurture the interest they have we should:

  1. Offer valuable content: The customer is not yet ready to buy, but wants to know more about what this business can do for them. Blog posts, Videos, Infographic and product images all help to convey the value your business can provide. Reference your target buyer persona (as mentioned in Step 1), to decide how to construct your content.

  2. Stimulate action: When you approach the Greengrocers’ market stall, what do you expect to happen? Does the trader stand silent and still, or does he offer samples of the product and/or offer special discounts?

    The same logic applies for websites - with just product info and a buy button, we probably won’t get anywhere. Providing clear ‘Calls To Action’, engages customers and provides them the opportunity to stay connected with your business. Common CTAs might be:

    • Follow us on Social Media! link
    • Subscribe to our Newsletter: link
    • Learn more about our new [product]: link

    CTAs like those above are essential for ensuring new visitors stay engaged and do not navigate away prematurely. Without CTAs, most users would leave your site without having done much else than scan the homepage, leading to higher bounce rates.

The goal of our efforts in the ‘Act’ phase are to try and nurture passive interest in our business into new Marketing Leads who are actively engaged with our brand.

Step 3: Convert

The greengrocer spies you standing at the edge of his stall, hovering cautiously. “What can I do ya for?” he enquires brusquely, to which you timidly reply “Pineapples, I can’t see any…”. “We’ve only got Papaya today, I’m afraid, 3 for 2 for you!” comes he retorts.

Let’s break down the interaction above:

  1. The trader made a conscious effort to find out what the customer is looking for:

    On the street, this boils down to a simple question, but on the web we can develop analogs for the same idea:

  2. The trader provided a personalised offer to the prospective customer:

    Providing personalised offers and content is also possible on the web, again through different analogs:

    • Personalised email content: using email software to target recipients with personalised data (such as their name, hobbies and interests etc.) can be a great way to ensure that the email is compelling and gets opened and read thoroughly
    • Providing special offers to specific customers: you may want to target audiences who have already purchased your products, or audience members under 30 years old to get them excited about a new product range. If you are a bigger business you may want to segment your audience into seperate customer profiles

By performing these actions, we make the customer feel that their needs are heard, and that they are valued. Later down the line, this could lead them to be a loyal consumer.

By providing tailored content and offers to the customer, the ‘Convert’ stage is targetted at getting Marketing Leads to a position where they want to purchase of an item or good from the business.

Step 4: Engage

The Grocer swiftly bags your 3 Papaya, deftly slipping a business card a business card into your outstretched hand as you wait. Laughing, you pocket the business card, take the bag of fruit. As you walk away, you give the card a cursory glance.

When online Marketing Leads make the leap from prospects to converted customers, it is a pivotal moment for any business to consolidate it’s relationship with them. Here are some suggestions which can help foster a fulfilling relationship:

  • Sharing on Social Media: There’s a tiny sense of glee in seeing of seeing the Order Confirmation email. Perhaps that post-payment buzz might get someone motivated to tell their friends?
  • Email Newsletter Sign Up: Email Newsletters can help the user stay abreast of new product releases, get updates on sales and special offers etc.
  • Experience Rating: not only can a quick post-purchase survey can help customers voice concerns about the purchase process, but it can also convey compassion that you have their best interests in mind.

By offerring further ways to engage, we offer the customer the opportunity to increase Brand Affinity, thus increasing their likelihood of sharing their experience with friends and of repeat purchases.

In an effort to retain our hard-won customer relationships, the ‘Engage’ phase seeks to keep new and existing customers thinking about the business they purchased from, in the hopes that next time they are in the market for similar services, we will be the first site they visit

Keeping the Wheel rolling

By taking a holistic view of the customer’s journey (‘first click’ to completed sale), we can really hone in on why customers are wandering off-track. Just like people, each business is unique and will have it’s own pimples to pop and spots to squeeze.

Implementing the RACE framework, we can view the whole consumer journey, identifying not only why users might tab over to Social Media halfway through conversion, but also users who never even make it to the homepage, and those who dissapear into the ether immediately after purchase.

Spreading your Marketing efforts independently between

  • Sourcing new customers (Reach)
  • Increasing the quantity that they buy from you (Convert)
  • Persuading them to come back and buy again (Engage)

…can have a cumulative effect, with experts saying that a 26% increase in each area would provide a tidy 100% conversion rate increase2.

References

1 D. Croxen-John, J.V. Tonder, E-Commerce Website Optimisation, KoganPage, UK, 2021, p. 4.

2 D. Croxen-John, J.V. Tonder, E-Commerce Website Optimisation, KoganPage, UK, 2021, p. 3-4.