We’ve upgraded our interactive benchmarking tool that assesses the digital marketing capability of your business

Use our RACE framework to discover your ability to Plan, Reach, Act, Convert and Engage

Two years ago we launched our free interactive marketing benchmarking tool to help members rate their 'digital readiness' for digital marketing as a whole and for the key channels like Search, Social media and Email marketing.

Well, it's proved popular since it helps members score where they are now and then gives recommendations of how to improve in the future - to take their skills or marketing results to the next level.

So in our recent UX members refresh - we have made it more prominent and put all the benchmarking tools in place.  We also renamed it to 'capability grader'.

Introducing our upgraded, free interactive tool!

I'm also writing this post to let members know about a simplification to the most popular digital strategy grader which you may want to try - it's here (available if you're signed in):

• http://www.smartinsights.com/capability-grader/

What's changed?

To make it easier for our users, we have simplified the digital marketing strategy grader. You can now assess your digital marketing strategy and planning via the capability grader - using the 'Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning' box on the left.

Previously, each grader was split into the different parts of the RACE planning framework, that's Plan, Reach, Act, Convert and Engage.

Now, we have put these different stages into a single 'Digital marketing strategy and Planning' grader. This will help members effectively manage their business' strategy and ability to plan in one place.

Most people score about 2 on our grader, leaving lots of room for improvement, do you think you could score higher?

Once you have honestly scored your businesses' ability to 'RACE' you will be given a score and what this score means in the marketing world.

But we don't just give you your score and that's it. We will guide you through different areas that your business needs to develop to successfully optimize your business and take it the level of marketing leading capability.

What do I do after I complete the capability grader?

Our capability grader will suggest the best resources for your business to get started.

We have 170+ resources covering a wide range of marketing  activities- and 27 resources in the Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning toolkit including guides, models, templates (including spreadsheets), workbooks, e-learning courses. There is a range of resources and help at hand to get your business to the next level. The tool makes recommendations of the most relevant guides and templates for the stage you are at.

Our capability grader is free to use and available to all members. If you want to use our capability grader to assess your business's strategy and planning process, you can sign up to be a FREE basic member. You will also get free access to our popular visual also enabling you to grade your digital marketing.

Download Free Member resource – Digital benchmarking templates

Score your business from Level 1 to Level 5 for the different ‘best practice’ marketing activities you are using for each of the core processes we have defined as each row. Once you know where you are currently at you can focus your efforts to improve. Use our guides to increase your skills and understanding in the key areas identified by the templates.

Access the Free digital marketing maturity benchmarking templates