Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

One thing I really liked about the NFL Draft this year was the way teams hired for specific needs and fit, even though more talented and higher rated players were available, as mentioned here.

What's impressive about all professional sports drafts - and important for marketers to understand - is how on top of the data the teams are.

While there is always a surprise or two that the teams didn't see or know about, overall they do a very accurate job of properly evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the players they're seeking.

Nothing of course can be done perfectly in this world, but we can come close when we understand the data available to us.

There's more to it than simply analyzing data, as important as that is; it's evaluating data as they apply to us.

Data are raw and can be used to say a lot of things. We have to filter data through our mission and goals, while at the same time ensuring it's as accurate as we can get.

When I say data can be used to say a lot of things, I'm not talking about "making" it say what we want to hear, rather that it can be applied in a number of ways to different parts of our businesses and marketing campaigns.

One company or marketing department could look at the same data as another, and take completely different actions. A lot of it depends on the age of a company; the age or newness of a product or service; what the demographic is and how they respond to advertising, among many other things.

This is why Warren Buffett can read reports about companies and see something far more than others see. The reason is, data tell a story, and we must understand what that story is. Once we understand that data and the story it's telling us, we then see if it fits in our core business culture and values.