While many marketers still rely too heavily on intuition, the best marketers use data aggressively but effectively by possessing comfort with ambiguity, asking strategic questions based on data, and focusing on higher-order goals. Managers need to guide their marketing teams to develop these key skills by putting data at the center of decision-making, interpreting it carefully, and creating a well-guided environment that filters out noise and focuses on relevant insights.

2. In today’s world with Big Data
exploding and finding it’s way into
every field, there still are many who
rely on intuition.
A recent CEB study of nearly 800
marketers at Fortune 1000
companies found the vast majority of
marketers still rely too much on
intuition — while the few who do use
data aggressively for the most part
do it badly.

7. The best marketers possess these
three qualities:
•comfort with ambiguity
•ability to ask
strategic questions based on data
•narrow focus on higher-order goals.

8. To make them the best, the marketing
leaders need to put data front and
centre of their decision making and
interpret data carefully.

10. A manager needs to guide the marketers
to focus on the three key features which
the best ones possess. Creating a well
guided team environment can help them
filter out the noise and focus on the
insights which are relevant to the study.
However, teaching them how to reduce
the noise is hard and the ability in itself is
rare.