The Analytical Marketer: How to Transform Your Marketing Organization by Adele Sweetwood

Adele Sweetwood is the head of Global Marketing for SAS, the world’s largest independent analytics company, where she leads over 420 marketers, analysts, and other specialists.

At SAS she led the transformation of the marketing organization to meet the challenges and opportunities of data and analytics in a globalized market.

The Host’s Perspective: 

It’s no surprise to most marketers and business people that marketing has gone from Mad Men to Math Men (and Women).

So while marketers may be familiar with the concept of transitioning a company’s marketing function at a general level, implementing this change is difficult and takes time. Change is hard. The author is the Senior Vice President of Global Marketing for SAS, the world’s largest independent analytics company.

The Analytical Marketer is an excellent, candid chronicle of the marketing transformation at SAS, which is still going on and will actually never stop. The book is what the author wished she had when she started leading the marketing transformation at SAS a few years ago. And it’s not just about what happened at SAS – she draws on the analytical transformation lessons learned at other companies as well.

Highlights of the book include why and how today’s buyer, why and how sales and marketing is changing, the necessary modern mindset toward marketing analytics, how to restructure your marketing function around your customer, the different skill sets needed for analytical marketers, and the marketing leadership that is needed for transformation.

While the necessity and benefits of marketing transformation may be obvious to many, there was one insight in the book that stood out to me in particular. And that is that the better use of analytics and related deeper understanding of customers is quite possibly the competitive differentiator of the future. 

Listen to the Interview: 

Show Notes

The Analytical Marketer: How to Transform Your Marketing Organization by Adele Sweetwood

12 Powers of a Marketing Leader by Thomas Barta (Marketing Book Interview)

Thomas Davenport’s Books (Amazon.com)

Jim Collin’s Books (Amazon.com)

Seth Godin’s Books (Amazon.com)

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