After taking a closer look at a new report from Brand Marketing Sweden, we can see a clear gap between what marketing departments and senior management want to focus on. CEOs and CFOs are calling for a clearer link between marketing activities and the company’s overall objectives. At the same time, many marketing departments are instead focused on using AI to increase their output.

This leads us to the conclusion: Marketing and communications leaders should work more actively to ensure that their AI-driven production aligns with the company’s objectives. In practice, this means starting with what the company wants to achieve, what customers need and how the market is changing—instead of starting with the question of what content to produce.

It therefore becomes important to collect and analyse insights about customers, markets and media, and then use them to set priorities. Put simply, this means answering questions such as: Which target audiences are most important to reach? Which issues should the organisation champion? Where can communication support the company’s objectives? This work also gives the CMO strong arguments to present to senior management—for example, when discussing next year’s budget.

What you can do in practice:

• Media analysis and share of voice: Assess how visible you are compared with your competitors, which issues you are associated with, and which target audiences you are—or are not—reaching.
• Competitor analysis: Map what your competitors are doing and which subject areas they are trying to own.
• Audience insights: Identify the needs, problems and questions that matter most to the customers you want to reach. A range of methods can be used to deepen this understanding.
• Search and AI visibility: Analyse how visible and well understood your company is in search engines and AI services when customers look for answers to relevant business questions.
• Market intelligence and trend analysis: Identify changes in the market, your industry and society that could present opportunities or risks for your organisation.
• Mapping communication opportunities: Identify the expertise, data, spokespeople and customer cases that can be used to strengthen your position.
• Strategic recommendations: Provide concrete advice on which target audiences, messages and communication activities you should prioritise to support your business objectives.

This work can provide a clear basis for decisions about your marketing, PR and content strategy. The goal is to spend less time and effort on content with no clear direction and more on communication that strengthens your position and supports sales. It also makes it possible to demonstrate to senior management how marketing delivers genuine business value.