You know things about how people interact with your business or brand that you couldn’t possibly have known just a decade ago. You know how many people visited your website, from what country last night (or even right this second!). You know who sent them, how long they stayed and what held their attention. Your database can tell you about your loyal customers, when they shop, how much they spend and what prompts them to buy more. There’s no question that data is powerful and that business intelligence can inform better decisions.

But there’s a gap between what we know and what we do, and we need to get better at closing it. Most business owners understand that data is nice to have, but they don’t have a plan for what to do with it.

Data should do three things:

• Confirm or disprove what you were already thinking.
• Make you ask more of the right questions.
• Cause you to act on what you discover.

The power of data isn’t in the information. It’s what you do with it that matters.

Image by Johannes P. Osterhoff.