Sway

Interesting book on GRIT marketing framework that can be applied for new and profitable outcomes for a business. The framework described go to market strategy, repeatable, predictable, and measurable marketing programs that show the effectiveness and impact, adding intent and purpose to marketing efforts and implementation of tools and technology for efficient results. The read is easy and feels like a story.

A useful book for beginner marketers, or those who want to take a different approach to what they're doing. With strategies that can easily implemented, this book will help seasoned professionals through to those who are just testing the market for the first time.

This book, written by marketing expert Christine Del Villar, is intended to help other marketing professionals achieve greater success in their field, and be able to better demonstrate their value to the organizations that they work for. The book is divided into 16 chapters, with a total of about 250 pages.

The book starts by acknowledging some of the most common problems faced by marketing professionals, some of which include data issues, long sales cycles, and management turnover. The biggest issue that the author seems to identify though, is that marketing professionals often are not focused enough on demonstrating their own value to their organization ( ie marketing themselves); and therefore often have to deal with budget cuts or layoffs because the company does not fully appreciate the value of the marketing department. The author has outlined a process in this book to help address that and other issues, that she calls the G.R.I.T. Marketing Method. This acronym stands for Go-to-market strategy, RPM, Intention, and Tools and Technology. The plan is designed to help build trust, and demonstrate your value to your company while also achieving your goals.

The chapters walk you through the steps of this G.R.I.T. Method in order, with the first few chapters focusing on go-to-market strategy. The author identifies the importance of involving product, sales, marketing, and customer care teams working together, and gives examples and diagrams of how the process should work. Subsequent chapters give suggestions at each of the next stages, with examples and “touchpoints” that should be focused on.

Overall I thought that this book was helpful and gave some solid advice. There were a few things that were a little ambiguous, and some of the strategies seem like they might not work as well for certain industries, but overall there should be something valuable to learn here for most marketing professionals. The key point that you need to market yourself too, and not just the products, seems to be the most important lesson; and Del Villar has provided some great ideas to help you do just that.

Christina Del Villar's heart and soul abounds on the pages of Sway in advice and anecdotes from her career experiences in marketing. The personal and familiar tone of the author-as-narrator nicely softens the business edge of heady marketing matters. In future editions, I would like to see lengthier explanations of some of the advice shared here. Lastly, I am confused as to why the audience was implicitly limited to women, as in "kickass marketing Wonder Woman" (Chapter Eight).

I reviewed the written portion of the book in order to grasp some of the illustrations that I felt I missed by listening to the narration. As a business woman, I enjoy reading a good marketing book. When I saw SWAY, the cover enticed me. I enjoyed the offering, though I think it is important to understand something going into it.

I listened to the audio, but also quickly read through the book in order to view the illustrations. This book is written for those who have knowledge of marketing. I did not get a business degree (isn't a law degree just about the furthest thing from that, at least, it was when I received mine!). But I have learned business from operating a business. I have learned marketing ideas, bit by bit. I do not have any formal training though, so many of the terms were not familiar to me. I do think the book is written more for persons in the field who have knowledge of set marketing terms.

HOWEVER, I still got a lot out of the book, even having to push through the most technical part of it. I agree with the author claims that the book is for all levels of business persons, including CEOs who are more interested in running a company and bottom line than in what the marketing team says. There are key ideas and terms to take away.

I mostly enjoyed the stories, built in as illustrations, and could have used more. Stories always help an idea take root.