How to Build a Marketing Communications Strategy

Most organisations do not lack communication. They have a website, active social channels, a media plan, an annual report, a few campaigns a year and a team busy producing content. What they often lack is a marketing communications strategy: a single, agreed logic that explains what the organisation needs people to believe, why those people should care, and how every message, channel and campaign moves them closer to that belief.

Without that logic, activity multiplies and impact does not. Campaigns contradict each other, budgets follow habit rather than evidence, and leadership struggles to tell whether communication is working at all. In Saudi Arabia and Jordan, where national transformation agendas are reshaping whole sectors, audiences are highly digital and expectations of both government and business keep rising, that lack of coherence is expensive.

This guide sets out a practical, step-by-step method for building a marketing communications strategy, from the first audit to the measurement plan. It follows the logic of the Sudace Framework (Discover, Analyze, Understand, Strategize, Activate, Amplify) and closes with the mistakes that most often derail strategies and a worked example you can adapt to your own organisation.

What a marketing communications strategy actually is

A marketing communications strategy is the bridge between business objectives and everything an organisation says in public. It defines the role communication must play, the audiences that matter most, the position the organisation wants to own in their minds, the story that supports that position, and the channels, sequence and measures that will make it real.

It is not a media plan, a content calendar or a campaign idea. Those are outputs. A strategy is the set of choices that makes those outputs coherent and, just as importantly, the choices about what the organisation will not do. If a document cannot help a team say no to a request, it is a list of intentions, not a strategy.

A good strategy usually answers six questions:

• What business or policy problem is communication being asked to solve?
• Who must think, feel or do something differently for that problem to be solved?
• What do they believe today, and what stands in the way of change?
• What single position and narrative will move them?
• Which channels and moments will carry that narrative, and in what order?
• How will we know it is working, and what will we change when it is not?

The rest of this guide takes those questions one at a time. Each step builds on the previous one, so resist the temptation to start with channels. Channel decisions made before the insight is clear are almost always habit in disguise.

Step 1: Audit where you stand

Every strategy starts with an honest picture of the present. In the Sudace Framework this is the Discover stage: understanding the landscape, the challenges, audience behaviours and the communication environment the organisation is operating in. The aim is not a thick report. It is a shared, evidence-based view that the leadership team accepts as true.

Begin by pinning down the objective. Ask leadership to name the one or two business or policy outcomes that would make the next two to three years a success, then translate each into what communication must contribute. "Grow retail deposits" becomes "make the bank a credible first choice for young professionals". "Increase uptake of a new service" becomes "make citizens aware of the service, confident it works and clear on how to use it". This translation keeps the whole strategy honest about what communication can and cannot do.

Internal audit

Start inside. Interview leadership and key department heads separately, because the differences between their answers are often the most useful finding. Ask what the organisation is trying to achieve, what communication has done well, where it has let them down, and what they wish people outside understood.

Then gather every significant piece of recent communication: campaigns, websites, social channels, press coverage, sales materials and internal messages. Lay them side by side and ask a simple question: do these sound like the same organisation? Inconsistency found here is usually a symptom of a missing strategy rather than poor execution.

External audit

Next, look outward. Map competitors and comparable organisations, including those outside your sector that compete for the same attention. Review how they position themselves, which channels they invest in and which themes they repeat. Study the media and digital environment: what conversations exist about your category, which voices shape opinion, and how audiences search for and talk about the issues you care about.

For organisations active in both Saudi Arabia and Jordan, run this audit for each market. The category may be the same, but the competitors, media habits, platforms of choice and cultural references rarely are.

Performance audit

Finally, collect whatever data already exists: web analytics, social performance, search data, CRM records, customer service logs, past campaign reports and any brand or customer research. The question is not "how did each channel perform?" but "what evidence do we have about what moves our audiences, and where are the gaps in that evidence?"

The output of this step should fit on a few pages: what we are trying to achieve, how we are perceived, how we compare, what our communication currently says, and what we do not yet know.

Step 2: Turn research into insight

Data is not insight. The Analyze and Understand stages of the framework exist to turn research and observation into a small number of truths that change how the organisation should communicate. An insight is a non-obvious understanding of why people behave the way they do which, once acted on, opens a better way to reach them.

Fill the gaps from the audit with targeted research. That may mean qualitative interviews or focus groups with key audiences, social listening, search analysis, or a short survey to test a specific hypothesis. Keep it proportionate. Research should answer questions the strategy depends on, not satisfy general curiosity.

Then synthesise. A useful discipline is to write each candidate insight as a single sentence in the audience's own voice, followed by the implication for communication. For example: "I trust digital banking for small payments, but for anything that matters I want to speak to a person." The implication: lead with human reassurance, not just convenience. If the implication is not obvious, the insight is not sharp enough yet.

At this point, name the communication gaps explicitly. Typical gaps include:

• A perception gap: what the organisation is versus what audiences think it is.
• An awareness gap: audiences who would value the offer but do not know it exists.
• A relevance gap: the organisation is known, but not seen as being for people like them.
• A trust gap: claims are understood but not believed.
• A consistency gap: different parts of the organisation tell different stories.

Each gap calls for a different kind of communication. Awareness problems need reach and repetition; trust problems need proof, third-party voices and time; relevance problems need new messengers and new contexts. Diagnosing the gap correctly is half the strategy, and it is the step most often skipped when teams are under pressure to launch something quickly.

Step 3: Set your positioning and core narrative

With the gaps diagnosed, the Strategize stage begins. Positioning is the specific place the organisation wants to occupy in the minds of its priority audiences, relative to the alternatives they consider. It must be true, relevant to those audiences and distinct from competitors. If any one of those three is missing, the position will not hold.

Write the positioning as a short statement for internal use: for [audience], [organisation] is the [frame of reference] that [key benefit], because [reason to believe]. It will never appear in an advert, but it disciplines every brief that follows and gives approvers a clear test for every idea.

The core narrative turns positioning into a story people can repeat. It explains where the organisation comes from, what it believes, what it is doing about the problem audiences face and what future it offers them. A strong narrative works in Arabic and English without feeling translated, and it gives spokespeople, content teams and partners a common source to draw from.

Beneath the narrative, build a message house: one overarching proposition at the roof, three or four supporting pillars beneath it, and under each pillar the proof points that make it credible. Proof matters more in this region than many organisations assume. Audiences in Saudi Arabia and Jordan are sophisticated and increasingly sceptical of broad claims; a specific fact, a visible service improvement or a real customer story will do more work than any adjective.

For public-sector bodies and organisations whose work connects to Vision 2030 or Jordan's Economic Modernisation Vision, the narrative should show the link to the national agenda without leaning on it. Audiences already know the national plans exist. What they want to hear is what this organisation is doing, specifically, and what it changes for them.

Step 4: Define audiences and tailor the messages

Most strategies list too many audiences and describe them too thinly. "Youth", "SMEs" or "the public" are not audiences; they are categories. Prioritise the groups whose change in perception or behaviour matters most to the objective, then describe each one through the lens of the insight work: what they need, what they currently believe, what barrier stands between them and the desired action, and where they spend their attention.

For each priority audience, define:

1. The desired shift: from what they think or do now to what we want them to think or do.
2. The key message: the pillar of the message house that matters most to them, phrased in their terms.
3. The proof: the evidence most likely to persuade this specific group.
4. The tone: how formal, how warm, how direct, and in which language or register.
5. The trusted messengers: the people or institutions whose voice will carry the message further than the organisation's own.

Tone deserves particular care across the two markets. Modern Standard Arabic suits institutional communication in both countries, while social content often lands better closer to how people actually speak. Saudi and Jordanian audiences also respond to different cultural cues, humour and references. A single regional campaign can work, but only if adaptation is planned from the start rather than bolted on at the end.

Do not forget internal audiences. Employees, front-line staff and partners are often the first people customers or citizens hear from, and they are frequently the last to be briefed. Treat them as a priority audience with their own message and timing.

Content teams should receive this audience-message matrix as a working tool, not a slide in a deck. It is the bridge between strategy and the day-to-day work of content and social media, where most contact with audiences actually happens.

Step 5: Give every channel a clear role

Only now should channels enter the conversation. The question is not "which channels should we be on?" but "what job does each channel need to do for each audience, at each stage of their journey?" Channels that cannot be given a clear job should be deprioritised, however fashionable they are.

A practical way to frame this is the paid, owned, earned and shared model. Owned channels (website, apps, branches, email, publications) are where you control the experience and should hold the deepest content. Paid media buys reach and precision. Earned media, from press coverage to partners and credible creators, lends credibility you cannot buy. Shared channels, meaning social platforms and messaging apps, carry conversation and community.

Strong strategies make these four work together: paid amplifies the best owned content, earned coverage is reused across social, and every route points to an owned destination that turns interest into action. Weak strategies treat them as separate budgets with separate teams and separate measures.

Map channels against the audience journey: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty or advocacy. A ministry launching a new public service might rely on national media and outdoor for awareness, explainer content and search for consideration, a frictionless digital portal for conversion and feedback loops for advocacy. A B2B firm might lean instead on thought leadership, events, direct relationships and LinkedIn. The framework is the same; the mix is specific to the audience.

This is the point where integration either happens or fails. When each channel is planned by a different team working from a different brief, the audience experiences fragments rather than a story. An integrated marketing communications approach keeps strategy, creative, content and media working from one idea and one set of measures.

Step 6: Build the roadmap and measurement plan

A strategy that does not translate into a timeline and a budget remains a presentation. The Activate stage turns choices into a sequenced plan; the Amplify stage makes sure that plan learns and improves once it meets reality.

The roadmap

Structure the roadmap in phases rather than months. A common pattern is foundation (fix the owned channels, align internal teams, prepare proof points), launch (a concentrated burst that introduces the position), sustain (an always-on rhythm of content, media and engagement) and optimise (regular reviews that shift investment towards what works).

Anchor the roadmap to the moments that matter in each market: Ramadan and Eid, national days, the academic year, major industry events and the organisation's own business calendar. Then assign an owner to every workstream, set clear decision rights for approvals, and agree a governance rhythm, typically a monthly working review and a quarterly strategic review with leadership. Governance is unglamorous, but it is the main reason strategies survive their first year.

The measurement plan

Measurement should be designed before launch, not reconstructed afterwards. Link every objective to a small number of indicators across three levels: output (did we do what we planned?), outcome (did audiences notice, understand and engage?) and impact (did perception or behaviour change in a way that served the business?). Set baselines during the audit so that change can actually be measured.

Objective	Example indicators	Typical source
Awareness	Reach among priority audiences, branded search, share of voice	Media reports, search data, listening tools
Understanding and perception	Message recall, association with key attributes, sentiment	Brand tracking, surveys, social listening
Engagement	Quality visits, time on key pages, video completion, saves and shares	Web and social analytics
Action	Leads, applications, registrations, service uptake	CRM, forms, platform data
Loyalty and advocacy	Repeat use, referrals, reviews, satisfaction	CRM, review platforms, customer feedback

Keep the dashboard short enough that leadership will read it. Five to eight indicators reported consistently beat forty reported occasionally. Most importantly, decide in advance what will trigger a change: which result will move budget, revise a message or retire a channel. That is what turns measurement from a reporting exercise into a management tool.

Common mistakes in a marketing communications strategy

Even experienced teams fall into the same traps. Recognising them early saves months of effort and a good part of the budget.

• Starting with tactics. "We need a TikTok strategy" is a channel request, not a strategy. Start from the objective and the audience, and the channel question often answers itself.
• Confusing objectives. Business objectives (grow revenue, increase service uptake), marketing objectives (win a segment) and communication objectives (shift a perception) are related but different. Strategies fail when communication is held accountable for results it cannot control alone.
• Talking to everyone. A strategy that targets "all Saudis" or "everyone in Jordan" has not made a choice. Prioritisation feels risky, but diluted messages are riskier.
• Translating rather than adapting. Taking an English concept and translating it into Arabic, or running a Saudi execution unchanged in Jordan, usually produces communication that is correct but cold.
• Skipping the proof. Claims without evidence, such as "leading", "innovative" or "customer-centric", are invisible. Every pillar needs proof points an audience can check.
• Ignoring internal audiences. Employees are the most credible messengers an organisation has. If they do not understand or believe the strategy, external audiences will notice quickly.
• Measuring activity instead of change. Impressions and follower counts are easy to report and rarely tell leadership what it needs to know.
• Treating the strategy as finished. Audiences, platforms and competitors move. A strategy should be reviewed formally at least once a year and adjusted whenever the evidence demands it.

Worked example: a regional bank launching a digital account

To make the method concrete, consider a hypothetical case. A mid-sized bank headquartered in Amman, with a growing presence in Riyadh, is launching a digital-first account for young professionals and small business owners in both markets. Leadership wants account openings, but it also wants to shift the bank's image from conservative and traditional to modern and approachable.

Discover and Analyze

The audit reveals that the bank is respected but seen as "my parents' bank". Its communication is formal and product-led, and its Jordanian and Saudi channels look like two different organisations. Competitors, including newer digital players, already own the language of speed and convenience. Interviews with young professionals surface a recurring tension: they want the ease of an app, but they do not fully trust a brand with no human face when something goes wrong.

Understand and Strategize

The insight becomes clear: convenience is now expected, while trust is still scarce. The bank's heritage, normally treated as a weakness with younger audiences, is reframed as an asset. The positioning: for ambitious young professionals and founders, this is the digital account backed by people who have been here for generations, fast when you want it and human when you need it.

The message house rests on three pillars: effortless everyday banking, real people on call, and support for growing ambitions. Each pillar carries tangible proof, such as in-app chat with named advisers, a short and simple opening journey, and practical tools for small business owners.

Audiences and channels

Two priority audiences are defined, salaried young professionals and owners of small and early-stage businesses, each with its own message and proof. Saudi and Jordanian executions share one idea but use different talent, references and tone. Channels are given roles: short-form social video and creator partnerships for awareness, search and comparison content for consideration, a redesigned onboarding flow on the website and app for conversion, and an in-app community and referral programme for advocacy. Branch and call-centre staff are briefed and trained first, so the "human" promise is true from day one.

Activate and Amplify

The roadmap runs in four phases: foundation work on the app experience and staff readiness, a launch timed away from the most crowded media weeks, a sustained content rhythm anchored to salary days and business milestones, and quarterly optimisation. The dashboard tracks perception shift among the target group, applications and completed openings, onboarding drop-off and referrals, with baselines set before launch. When early data shows that small business owners respond better to adviser-led stories than to product features, budget and creative shift accordingly.

None of this depends on an unusually large budget. It depends on clear choices made in the right order. The same sequence applies to a ministry launching a new public service, an NGO building donor trust or a developer entering a new city. You can see how this kind of thinking plays out across sectors in our success stories.

From strategy to results

A marketing communications strategy earns its value only when it guides decisions every week: what to approve, what to fund and what to stop. Build it on evidence, keep it short enough to use, and review it as seriously as any financial plan.

If you are planning a new strategy or rethinking one that no longer fits, our marketing communications strategy team in Riyadh and Amman can take you from audit to roadmap.

To start the conversation, get in touch with Sudace and tell us where your organisation stands today.