Turning data into information

As a marketer, you collect a lot of data all the time: Sales, profit margins, buying patterns and habits, retailers' preferences, number of competitive items, and so on. Turning that data into information you can actually use for marketing planning can be a challenge.

Many marketers are testing ways to convey data visually, to help bring out patterns and anomalies. The old saying, A picture is worth a thousand words, really is true.

Now companies are developing new ways to visually convey data points so the conclusion jumps out at the viewer. Above are two colourful data presentation examples.

Another approach is to marry maps and data, as SAP and Google are doing. This has the potential to help retailers understand footfall patterns, the perimeter of market areas and more.

As a result, marketing plans--which are already electronic, to be shared throughout management ranks--are becoming more colourful to help decision-makers grasp the conclusions instead of trying to consider individual data points in isolation.