Marketers today need to be comfortable with data. They need to be able to understand what the data is telling them and how to make decisions based on that. The best hunches or instincts in the world cannot compete with data-driven strategies. Not in 2019.

But you and I are not the experts. We didn’t go to school to learn how to work with data (though perhaps more marketing coursework in the future will involve data analytics and statistics).

That’s why we need to befriend the people who are experts.

Data analysts and data scientists are the folks who know how to make sure your company is collecting the right data, how to review and sort through that data to get answers to critical business questions, and how to present their findings in a way that makes it easy to make business decisions.

For marketers, this skill set is a godsend. Here are just a few of the key ways marketers can work with data analysts to achieve better business results:

  1. Build real-time reporting by advertising channel that lets you view return on investment at the high level across channels and dive deeper within each channel to improve optimization decisions

  2. Gain a deeper understanding of how customers are progressing through the buyer journey and identify opportunities within the sales funnel to improve the likelihood of conversion

  3. Build more robust buyer personas with first-party data collected by your company that will help your sales team prospect more effectively and influence future branding and messaging decisions

  4. Isolate the impact of key pricing and promotional campaigns in order to determine the ideal pricing strategy that drives maximum profitability and sales

  5. Connect your data with key advertising platforms to derive greater value from AI and machine learning going forward, letting algorithms take the lead of spending decisions in order to maximize efficiency

Every marketing organization today needs people who are fully engaged with the data their company and their customers are generating. This data is a treasure trove of information that can be used to guide decisions at every level of the company.

As a marketer, you would be smart to spend more time with your company’s data analysts and data scientists, leveraging their incredible skill set to help you do more.