What advice would you have for marketers attempting to best leverage the data at their disposal?

Interactive Edge’s CEO, Zel Bianco comments:

I have been known to say “stop worrying about Big Data and use the data you have.”
The reason I made that statement was that so many companies have sat in endless meetings discussing the fact that they don’t have enough data to make decisions and yet they are not effectively using the data they do have.

It shocks me that major CPG companies are still only using a portion of the data they have access to. Some are happy that they use syndicated and panel data while others are combining up to eight to 10 different data sources. Still others are paying dearly for data and only using a fraction of the measures contained in the data. Do retailers and marketers understand the limitations of their data? I think many times they don’t understand that while combining data sources will lead to a higher level of insights and recommendations, they may not have the human resources or skill set to get the job done.

The limitation may actually be in people who understand how to use data as opposed to the data itself. Small Data and sometimes the combination of different Small Data sources can lead to big decisions.

Big Data is done, put a fork in it