Remember that old connect-the-dots game—the one a parent or friend likely taught you as a kid? You draw a bunch of dots in a pattern of squares and then take turns connecting one dot to another. If you make a box with your line, you get to place your initial inside the box and then draw another line. And so on. The person with the most boxes at the end wins.
That’s a fairly apt metaphor for how today’s savvy marketers transform data gathering into marketing. First, you....