Your essential guide to marketing, sales and customer experience

Marketing, sales and customer experience (CX) all play vital roles in attracting, converting and retaining customers—but they serve distinct purposes.

Marketing is about understanding your audience, raising awareness, and positioning your product or service to appeal to the right people. Sales picks up when interest is shown, focusing on direct interactions, relationship building, and closing deals. Customer experience covers every interaction someone has with your brand—from their first impression to post-purchase support—and it plays a huge role in loyalty and referrals.

Explore the differences between marketing, sales and CX

Market research helps you understand what your audience wants, spot trends, and analyse competitors. It’s a mix of primary research (like surveys or interviews) and secondary research (such as industry reports or customer reviews).

You can use market research to guide decisions about product development, pricing, positioning and more. Whether you're starting out or refining your approach, it’s one of the most powerful tools to stay competitive and relevant.

Dive into market research and competitor analysis

Market segmentation helps you divide your potential customers into smaller groups based on shared characteristics—such as demographics, behaviours, or values—so you can tailor your marketing more effectively.

Done well, segmentation helps you focus your efforts where you’re most likely to succeed. You’ll then choose which segments to target and position your product in a way that appeals directly to them. For example, a café might market to busy parents in the morning and offer deals for pensioners in the afternoon—each with tailored messaging and service.

Learn how to segment your market and position your offer

A customer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, helping you tailor your marketing and customer experience to their needs and preferences. You can create personas based on your market research and segmentation.

For example, instead of targeting "cash-rich, time-poor parents," you might create a persona like ‘Samantha’, a busy mum who wants a quick, healthy breakfast before work.

Learn more about creating customer personas

Customer journey mapping helps you step into your customer’s shoes and understand what they might think, feel and do as they discover, engage with and buy from your business. By plotting their actions and emotions across key stages—from awareness through to advocacy—you can identify opportunities to improve the experience and remove friction.

Journey maps are especially useful when launching or reviewing your marketing strategy. They often follow on from developing customer personas and can highlight where to refine your touchpoints to make the path to purchase smoother and more satisfying.

Learn how to map the customer journey effectively

Your marketing strategy outlines how you’ll reach and engage your ideal customers to meet your business goals. It’s shaped by your research and defines your priorities—what you’ll offer, who you’ll target, how you’ll position yourself, and which channels you’ll use to promote and distribute your product or service.

A strong strategy sets the direction for your marketing activities and guides your team on what matters most.

Explore how to create a marketing strategy that delivers

Once you’ve set your marketing strategy, your marketing and sales plan puts it into action. This detailed plan outlines what you’ll do, when and how often, who’s responsible, and how success will be measured.

It should break down the specific platforms, channels, and activities that move your customers from awareness through to loyalty and advocacy—whether that’s social media, signage, events, or review requests. It’s also your space to plan day-to-day actions and allocate tasks, so nothing slips through the cracks.

Discover how to build a practical, results-driven marketing and sales plan

Customer feedback is invaluable for understanding what your customers love and where you can improve. Collecting feedback from multiple sources—public reviews, surveys, or customer complaints—helps you see your business from your customers' perspective and make meaningful improvements.

To gather feedback effectively, ensure that your requests are timely, easy to respond to, and not disruptive to the customer journey. After collecting it, always respond with appreciation, whether it’s addressing complaints or thanking customers for positive reviews. Using feedback to fine-tune your marketing and sales strategies can significantly improve your customer experience and business growth.

Learn how to collect, respond to, and use customer feedback to enhance your business

Choosing marketing tactics can feel overwhelming with so many options available—social media, SEO, events, and more. The key is aligning your tactics with your target audience and playing to your strengths.

Start by considering your customer’s location, your business type, and how visual your products are. For example, if you're targeting a local audience, focus on Google My Business and local SEO. For visual businesses, Instagram and TikTok might be great choices.

To refine your options, place tactics into an impact/ease matrix—this helps you prioritise what fits your business and feels comfortable to implement. Avoid getting caught up in trends; instead, focus on what works best for you and your customers.

Explore more about selecting the right marketing tactics for your business

Your marketing, sales, and customer experience budgets depend on your business goals, industry, and stage of growth. As a general guide, marketing budgets tend to be around 7-8% of revenue, but this can vary.

Start-ups might spend 12-20%, while established businesses could spend 6-12%. Aggressive growth plans or competitive markets may require a larger share of the budget. AI tools have helped reduce production costs, allowing you to reallocate funds to paid advertising or boost your reach.

Learn how to set your marketing budget effectively.

Measurement helps you see what’s working and where to improve. Your marketing and sales plan should already hint at what to track, and customer feedback will guide your overall experience strategy.

A useful headline metric is Net Promoter Score (NPS)—how likely a customer is to recommend you. A high or improving NPS can signal strong satisfaction, while drops may point to underlying issues.

You can track performance across key stages of the customer journey:

• Awareness – Are people finding you? Look at reach, web traffic, and social followers.
• Consideration – Are they interested? Track enquiries, demo bookings, or items added to cart.
• Conversion – Are they buying? Monitor conversion rates and cost per acquisition.
• Loyalty – Are they coming back? Use repeat purchase data and customer lifetime value.
• Advocacy – Are they referring others? Track referral codes and mentions.

Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and your CRM to build a clear picture. Over time, this helps you focus effort and budget where they’ll make the most impact.

Learn more about measuring and monitoring performance

UMi Sat Nav subscribers can also watch our Winning More Customers webinar, which includes measuring performance through the customer journey.

Outsourcing can be a great way to fill skill gaps, save time, and improve results—especially if marketing isn’t your strong suit.

Alongside following general advice on choosing suppliers, here are a few tips on what to look for in a marketing consultant or agency.

1. What’s their approach? – If you get excited about creative ideas and they are more excited by being data-led, you might find yourself speaking different languages. Look for a good fit, unless you specifically want them to strengthen an area you’re not good at, or you want to be challenged to improve any blind spots.
2. Do they have specialist skills? – Even if you can do some aspects of marketing yourself, working with a consultant or agency can help you fill skills gaps of your own, or in your team.
3. Do they offer value-adds? – They may have access to specialist tools that save you time and money, for example by doing an audit, providing you with insights, or accessing resources cheaply as a client.
4. Size of client you would be to them for your budget – What does your budget buy you? If you’re a much smaller business than they are – or smaller than their other clients – your budget may not go as far as you’d like. You may find you’re lower on the pecking order of their client priorities.

For more support, explore tips on working with web designers, SEO consultants, or international trade partners.

A design brief acts as a communication bridge between your ideas and the final creative outcome, helping to streamline the process and avoid unnecessary back-and-forth.

Although your brief will vary depending on what the project is, some key information to include is:

• Business background
• Project goals
• Target audience
• Timescales
• Branding requirements
• Preferred imagery

Get more detailed information on what to include in each section of a design brief.

There are plenty of free and paid resources to help you upskill, in addition to looking around UMi Sat Nav. Start by checking if your local council or Growth Hub offers business support programmes or workshops.

Here are some other helpful platforms and tools:

• Smart Insights – Offers a digital marketing framework and practical how-to guides.
• Neil Patel – Free tools and tutorials to improve your SEO and website performance.
• Social Media Examiner – Great for social media tips, trends and tutorials.
• HubSpot Academy – Free courses on inbound marketing, sales, and customer service.
• Grow with Google – Free training on digital skills including analytics and online marketing.
• LinkedIn Learning – Paid courses (often free with a library card) covering sales, marketing, and customer experience topics.
• Coursera or FutureLearn – Online courses from universities and institutions on a wide range of business skills.

Looking for a qualification? In Professional Development offers a 15% discount for UMi Sat Nav users.

Your brand is more than a logo—it’s the overall impression your business creates, shaped by your values, personality, and customer experience. A strong brand helps you stand out, build trust and attract the right people.

Whether you’re designing your brand for the first time or giving it a refresh, it’s important to align what your audience expects with what feels true to you. This includes visual elements, tone of voice, and even the emotional experience your business creates—online and in person.

Explore how to develop a brand that connects with your customers

Once you’ve defined your brand, it’s time to bring it to life. You might create your brand assets using design tools, or work with a designer to develop a professional, polished look and feel.

Whichever route you take, the goal is the same – to create a consistent and credible experience across every part of your business. From logos and colour palettes to tone of voice and templates, there are practical ways to get the best results and avoid common pitfalls.

Get tips for creating your brand or briefing a designer

Your website is often the first impression your business makes—so getting it right matters. Whether you’re building it yourself or working with a web designer, careful planning will help you create a site that’s professional, user-friendly, and aligned with your goals.

From defining the purpose and functionality to choosing layouts, images and hosting options, there are lots of decisions to make. But with a clear brief and strong foundations like your brand and audience insights, you’ll be well placed to succeed.

Explore key steps and tips for building your business website

Once your website is live, ongoing improvements help ensure it continues to meet the needs of your audience, stays up to date with best practice, and supports your business goals.

From speeding up load times and refining content, to enhancing accessibility, SEO, and user journeys—small tweaks can make a big difference to performance and perception.

Discover ways to keep your website working harder for your business

Content plays a key role in engaging your audience throughout their journey—from building awareness to encouraging repeat business:

• Early-stage content should educate or inspire, helping people discover your brand and build trust without the hard sell.
• Mid-stage content helps customers evaluate your offer by highlighting benefits, answering FAQs, and showcasing pricing, reviews or demos.
• After purchase, content can support customer success and encourage repeat business and advocacy—such as through testimonials or case studies.

From blogs and videos to case studies and emails, choose formats that suit your audience, channels and resources.

AI tools can help you streamline production and access new skills, even if you're a small team or just starting out.

Get more tips on producing and managing content for your online audience

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) helps your website appear higher in search results, making it easier for people to find your business online.

At its core, good SEO involves understanding what your audience is searching for and reflecting those terms naturally in your content.

Search engines reward websites that are fast, mobile-friendly, up to date, and full of useful content. They also pay attention to how people interact with your site—whether they stick around, click through pages or take action.

Earning backlinks from reputable sites, maintaining an active Google Business Profile, and inviting customers to review you on Google so you have a good Google business rating can also help boost your visibility.

Read our beginner’s guide to SEO for small businesses

Social media is a powerful way to reach your audience, increase brand awareness and build trust with potential customers. To get the best results, start with a clear goal—whether that’s to grow your following, generate leads or drive sales.

Pick platforms that match your audience: for example, LinkedIn for B2B, Instagram and TikTok for B2C.

Create a content plan that focuses 80% on informing or entertaining your audience, with just 20% of posts focused on promotion.

Schedule posts using tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to stay consistent, and engage regularly by replying to comments, sharing relevant content and joining conversations. Use platform analytics to learn what works best and adjust your strategy over time.

Find out more about using social media to promote your business, and check out these tips to help you boost social media engagement.

If you’re an UMi Sat Nav subscriber, you can check out our in-depth guide to social media marketing for beginners.

Email marketing remains one of the most direct and cost-effective ways to communicate with your audience. You can use it to send welcome messages, newsletters, business updates and promotional offers—so long as you have consent from your recipients.

Grow your mailing list through sign-up forms on your website, opt-in options on social media, or sign-up sheets at events. Email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, HubSpot and Sender make it easy to design emails, manage lists and track results.

Find out more about making email marketing work for your business

UMi Sat Nav subscribers can also watch our Winning More Customers webinar, which includes email automation.

Public relations (PR) can help raise your profile, build trust, and set you apart from the competition. By securing positive media coverage, you benefit from third-party endorsement and improve your online visibility.

Follow these simple steps to get started:

1. Set clear PR goals—whether it’s awareness, credibility or sales.
2. Identify media your audience reads or watches, including blogs and online news outlets. Consider traditional media and online news and blog platforms - you can search on geography, industry, topic and type of business (B2C/B2B).
3. Think about the stories you can share—what’s new, useful, or engaging for readers? Different outlets will be interested in different kinds of stories and you can research this. For example, here are UMi’s guidelines for contributors – the topics and features we cover might give you some inspiration. 
4. Write a press release with the key information in the first paragraph. Include high-quality images if you have them.
5. Build relationships with relevant journalists over time by being helpful, reliable and relevant.

Find out more about promoting your business with PR 

PPC advertising is all about boosting your visibility and reach. It lets you pay to promote your business to targeted audiences on search engines, social media, directories, and news sites. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad—so it’s all about creating high-impact, results-focused campaigns.

To get started:

1. Set clear goals and a realistic budget for your PPC campaign.
2. Identify where your audience spends time online –Google and Bing are good places to start, alongside platforms like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Think about geography, industry and topics. 
3. Choose the pages you want people to land on – like a product, service or sign-up page.
4. Write compelling ad copy that highlights the benefit to your audience of visiting your page. Keep in mind any platform guidelines.
5. Upload your ad (or work with a platform account manager), and test that everything works correctly.
6. Track performance, and tweak your copy, budget or targeting to get better results.

Learn how to fix common PPC issues and improve your return on investment