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Create a marketing and sales plan

Last updated on July 31, 2025

An effective marketing and sales plan builds awareness, attracts customers and drives growth. Explore how to stay focused on your customers, adapt to changes and improve results.

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Market research

Understand your audience, analyze competitors, and identify market trends that will shape your marketing and sales strategies.

See conduct market research for detailed guidance.

Competitor Analysis

Identify your three closest competitors. For each competitor, identify their strengths and weaknesses. Focus on their marketing and sales strategies. Review:

  • What they do well
  • Where you think you could improve upon their offerings
  • How your business can better position itself in response

Inspirational company profile

Choose a company that is like yours but more established. This does not have to be a direct competitor. They may:

  • Operate in a different region
  • Serve a different customer segment
  • Offer a different (but related) product or service

Highlight what makes them successful. This could be their business model, marketing approach or brand positioning.

Identify your target market

Your target market is the specific group or groups of customers your business chooses to serve. You may have more than one target market. If so, consider each one separately and in detail.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can also help define and analyze target markets using demographic, psychographic and behavioural data for each of the sections below.

Business to Consumer (B2C) or Business to Business (B2B)

Determine whether your customers are:

  • Individual consumers (B2C)
  • Other businesses (B2B)
  • Both

 This distinction will shape how you define your market characteristics.

Demographics

Consider the following to describe your customers and the companies you serve.

B2C

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Occupation
  • Ethnicity
  • Income level
  • Education
  • Family status

B2B

  • Industry type
  • Company size
  • Location
  • Number of employees
  • Annual revenue
  • Associations or memberships 
  • Details about customers or key decision makers

Psychographics

Go beyond surface-level data. Psychographics are the characteristics that help explain why people make certain choices or behave in certain ways.

Describe your target market's:​

  • Values
  • Beliefs
  • Lifestyle
  • Interests
  • Attitudes
  • Purchasing behaviors

These insights help you understand why people or businesses may or may not buy your product.

Customer persona

Create a customer persona. This is a fictional but realistic representation of an ideal customer. You can use AI tools to help generate personas based on your type of business, your location and current trends.

Be as specific as possible when describing your ideal customer:

  • Combine the most important demographic and psychographic traits into a single, vivid profile to help guide your marketing and sales efforts
  • If you have multiple target markets, create a separate persona for each to reflect their unique characteristics

Complete a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) determines what your business does well and where it can improve. Review what your competitors are doing to identify opportunities. This can help you figure out your top priorities.

Use this analysis to better understand where your business stands. This can help you build on strengths, address weaknesses, seize opportunities and mitigate threats.

Strengths

Internal capabilities, resources, or achievements that give your business a competitive edge. These might include:

  • Strong brand
  • Skilled team
  • Unique technology
  • Efficient processes

Weaknesses

Internal limitations or areas where your business may be at a disadvantage compared to competitors. Examples include:

  • Gaps in expertise
  • Limited resources
  • Outdated systems
  • Unestablished reputation

Opportunities

External factors that your business can leverage to grow or improve its market position. These might include:

  • Emerging market trends
  • New customers segments
  • Technological advancements
  • New partnerships

Threats

External challenges that could have a negative impact on your business. Examples include:

  • New competitors
  • Changing regulations
  • Economic downturns
  • Shifts in consumer behaviour

Use the 4 Ps of marketing

Use the 4 Ps framework to define and align the core elements of your marketing strategy. Tailor each element to your target markets to support your overall business goals.

Product

Describe the product(s) or service(s) you are offering:

  • Identify the specific problems or needs your offering solves for your target market
  • Explain what sets your product apart from the competition. This could be your unique value proposition or competitive advantage

Highlight key features, benefits, innovations or qualities that make your product competitive

Price

Outline your pricing strategy and structure:

  • Detail how you have priced your product or service and how that compares with competitors
  • AI can help with pricing optimization by analyzing data to recommend prices that could help maximize your profits including:
    • Market trends
    • Customer behaviour
    • Comparable businesses
    • Seasonality
  • Explain how your pricing appeals to your target market, for example:
    • Affordability
    • Premium value
    • Flexible options
  • Include information about any:
    • Planned discounts
    • Promotions
    • Bundling
    • Tiered pricing models

Place

Describe how and where your product will be available to customers.

Choose whether you are selling:

  • Online
  • Through a brick-and-mortar store
  • A combination

Choose where and how to sell your product:

  • On your website
  • Through a third-party online retailer
  •  At a retail outlet or at a pop-up shop

Consider the following:

  • Where your target customers are most likely to search for and buy your product
  • Whether they prefer in-person or online shopping experiences
  • Where and how your competitors distribute their products, and how you can make your approach unique
  • Whether you currently have or need to set up access to the right distribution channels
  • If you are planning export your product the Export Navigator program assists with the export process

Promotion

Explain how you will communicate the value of your product to your target audience.

  • Promotion ties the other 3 Ps together and lets customers know what the product is, why it is worth the price, and where they can buy it
  • Promotion can also build awareness and generate interest in your product which can persuade customers to choose your product over others

Promotional efforts may include:

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Advertising

  • Signage
  • Digital
  • Print
  • Broadcast
 

Public relations

  • Industry events
  • Community support
  • Volunteering
  • Conferences
 

Sales promotions

  • Exclusive offers
  • Limited time offers
  • Contests
 

Digital marketing

  • Social media
  • Email campaigns
  • Influencer partnerships
  • Search engine optimization
  • Content marketing

 

Consider:

  • The promotional channels you will use
  • The key messages you want to communicate
  • How your promotion strategy matches the needs and behaviors of your target market
  • How you can use AI tools to support your work, for example, generating social media posts, ad copy, email campaigns and blog content based on your key messages
  • AI can suggest keywords and improve your content for better online search engine results
  • The rules and laws you must follow when creating marketing content. The Canadian Marketing Association has free online guides and the Canadian Marketing Code of Ethics.

Using each of the 4 Ps in your plan will ensure your marketing efforts are clear and focused.

Feedback and improvement

Create simple systems to track performance and gather customer feedback. Review your approach on a regular basis to identify areas to improve. Learning from what works (and what does not) helps you get better results.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs are metrics that help you assess the effectiveness of your marketing and sales strategies. This data can help you achieve your business objectives. Choosing the right KPIs is essential. They provide the insights needed to make informed decisions and guide future actions.

It is important to gather accurate, relevant data. This will help you make decisions based on meaningful insights, not assumptions.

Examples of marketing and sales KPIs include:

  • Website visits
  • Customer satisfaction scores
  • Net Promotor Score (NPS)
  • Search engine ranking
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR)
  • Cost Per Click (CPC)
  • Conversion rate (the percentage of customers who complete a desired action, like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter)
  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
  • Return on Investment (ROI)
  • Bounce rate
  • Churn rate

Decide which KPIs are most relevant to your business goals and marketing strategy. For each chosen KPI, clearly define:

  • What you are measuring
  • Why it matters to your business
  • How you will collect the data

Data collection options include:​

  • Website analytics tools
  • Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) systems
  • Customer surveys
  • Email campaign platform
  • Social media insights
  • Direct feedback tools

Monitor and improve

Once your KPIs are in place, track and analyze the data on a regular basis. The goal is to understand what is working, what is not and why.

Effective improvement involves:

  • Focusing on high-performing strategies and channels
  • Reducing or eliminating underperforming tactics
  • Experimenting with new methods, platforms or campaigns
  • Comparing the effectiveness of different marketing activities
  • Repeating this cycle over time to refine your approach

Create a regular review schedule (weekly, monthly or quarterly) to track your KPIs. During each review:

  • Document your findings
  • Identify trends
  • Make data-driven decisions

Use a simple performance tracking dashboard or spreadsheet to:

  • Record KPI results
  • Highlight which strategies are performing well
  • Flag areas that need attention or refinement
  • List specific actions to improve underperforming efforts
  • Set short-term goals or experiments to assess latest ideas

Commit to repeating this review cycle on a set schedule. Assign ownership to a team member or designate time in team meetings to stay on track with the schedule.

The Province is providing this resource solely for purposes of general guidance with respect to the subject matter involved.  As such, this resource is not intended as a substitute for professional advice. 

You should consult with a qualified professional to validate the accuracy and relevancy to your business before making any decisions based on this resource.