CONCLUSION

What's Next—Your Call to Action

In the preceding chapters, I have outlined the path that we at SAS have taken to transform ourselves into an analytical marketing organization. Along the way, I have shared some insights from other organizations and some tips for how you might begin your own transformation. But I don't think there is only one way to do that: each organization has its own baseline and opportunities to chase and challenges to surmount.

To me, the kind of analytical marketing culture you're trying to build should have the following characteristics:

•  Engagement

•  Collaboration

•  Focus

•  Courage

But I'm also a pragmatist. I don't think there is ever a true destination or end to this evolution. At SAS, we continue to explore how to keep up with the expectations and needs of our customers. There's no doubt that new tools will emerge, and new data sources will be tapped into. You can learn from how we have rethought our organization and structure to best take advantage of inevitable changes in the future.

I wish there had been a how-to guide available to us when we started searching for answers at beginning of our journey. I have given you practical ways, at the end of each chapter, to conduct some self-evaluation and provided tips for starting change in your organization. The “Sample Job Descriptions” in the next chapter, would have been invaluable to us several years ago, because they literally didn't exist at the time: we had to construct them from scratch. They can serve as a shortcut on your journey.

As a businessperson, I know that I want advice that I can use tomorrow. With that in mind, here are my thoughts on the three things you can start to do tomorrow (or Monday morning) to begin your transformation into an analytical marketing organization:

1. Evaluate—know where you stand

   – What is your analytical culture? Begin by finding out what tools you have available and how you use analytics to make decisions.

   – Find the data and own it. Ditch your spreadsheets.

   – Understand your customer. Quickly evangelize and operationalize. Use data and analytics to tell your customer experience story. Share the story across levels, departments, and intersection points.

2. Nurture relationships—build a guiding coalition of change agents

   – Fully integrate a communication strategy throughout your internal organization and the company. Let people, including in the C-suite, know what you want to do, when you want to do it, and why you're doing it.

   – Jointly design and implement—with balance and intent. This journey isn't just for the marketing department: you need partners. Talk with your peers in other departments and find ways to team up and drive results together.

   – Relationships matter inside your organization and outside it.

3. Embrace change—drive action and celebrate wins

   – Establish milestones, objectives, and outcomes. Don't let projects spin; it is easy to want perfection, but you never will reach it. If you can't measure your progress, you'll be unable to show the ROI from your investments or keep people excited about the journey you're asking them to take.

   – Challenge the obvious. What insights can you gain by looking into those dark corners that others have overlooked?

   – Provide a platform to expose for your efforts; partake in some shameless self-promotion.