Social marketing, a behaviour change discipline that originated in marketing, has contributed to a better world delivering positive health, environmental and social outcomes over the past 60 years. While successes are documented, failures are also evident, and delivery of cost-efficient, feasible, and maintainable programs has been called for. While the benefits of applying social marketing benchmark criteria (BC) are verified, roadmaps for how to apply BC in behaviour change program design are not apparent. This paper marks a first attempt at applying BC to co-create a social marketing program. A conceptual model that applies eight BC across four studies; 1) Systematic quantitative literature review, 2) Segmentation study, 3) Expert panel reviews, and 4) Co-design workshops is proposed. This paper offers a reseacrh process that researchers and/or practitioners can apply to develop behaviour change programs with the aim of achieving enhanced program outcomes. Moving forward the proposed model will need to be tested and replicated in field to verify the effectiveness of applying eight BC within the program design process.