At SAS, we've worked hard to transform ourselves into an analytical marketing organization. And it's an ongoing journey. As new tools and data sources appear, we'll continue to grow, change and improve.

As the leader of this effort, I wish there had been a how-to guide available when we started searching for answers at the beginning of our journey. I hope you can use our experience as a shortcut to modernizing your own marketing organization.

So here's some practical advice -- three things you can start to do tomorrow (or Monday morning) to begin your own 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's 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 for your efforts; partake in some shameless self-promotion.

For more advice from others who've made this same transformation, download the e-book: Your guide to modernizing the marketing organization: 6 real-world examples of marketing analytics at work

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Editor’s note: This post is excerpted from Adele Sweetwood’s book, The Analytical Marketer: How to Transform Your Marketing Organization.