Making marketing plans

Conducting an environmental scan of an industry allows you to identify factors that have (or could have) an impact on your proposed business venture. This guide is set up to help you find information to answer the following questions to help develop your marketing plan:

• Who are your competitors?
• What products or services are they making and/or selling and how do they compare to your product or service?  What are the industry's strengths/weaknesses?
• What market segment/customers are they targeting and why?
• How well are the existing companies doing? How many are profitable? What are some benchmarks?

These general guides will help you learn more about making marketing plans. 

• Business Development Bank of Canada - How to write a marketing plan
• Statistics Canada - Developing a marketing plan (focus on using StatsCan data to inform your planning)
• Mplans (marketing plan outlines and sample plans)
• Small Business BC - How to write a marketing plan (key components of a marketing plan)

Check out our Business Cases, Plans, and Finance guide for sample business plans and cases studies.