You’re probably tripping over an abundance of marketing data: behavioral, historical, demographic, lead generation, social media. But at any moment, can you harness all of that information into an accessible, easy-to-discern stream? If not, you’re just like any other marketer who won’t realize your ROI.

After acknowledgement, action is the next step to getting your data in order. So here are four strategies you should consider if you want to realize the full potential of your data.

Knock down all silos

Many marketers face a seemingly insurmountable hurdle: organizational silos. But it’s not insurmountable. All you need is a golden hammer, basically the promise to turn data into gold for the entire organization. That should tear down the walls.

Make data unity a constant goal by establishing a company-wide data management strategy. Charge leaders from each department to ensure that all information is shared. Product development, sales, shipping and just about every department matters in your pursuit to market effectively. Know what’s going on across the company.

Clean up dirty data

Having dirty data might be even more frustrating than having siloed information. After all, disjointed data is at your fingertips but it’s far from perfect to be used effectively. This is where an organization without silos has a huge head start.

When departments are aligned on the value of sharing data, they’re also of the same mind on the value of the data itself. Have those data representatives occasionally meet to prioritize data. This will help departments decide which data needs to be made whole and which data can simply be discarded. Thankfully, data analytics tools help departments easily collaborate and make joint decisions on data.

Interpret the data

Once you decide which data is pertinent to operations, it can’t just sit there waiting for the sunny day of exploration. Your organization needs to consistently interpret data to find patterns and discern its meanings. You’ll want to know if preliminary findings can lead you down unexpected paths, or whether it’s necessary to redefine the parameters of a data-driven project.

Not every organization can afford to employ a team of data analysts. Fortunately, data analytics technologies do the heavy lifting of learning. Actually, some platforms today are self-learning. Here, the analytics platform learns on its own, finding patterns and anomalies without first having to be instructed what to look for. This leads to unimaginable and exciting possibilities because human programmers don’t always think of everything.

Choose the right technology

Speaking of technology, it’s critical to have the right technology that will collect, coalesce, clean and analyze your data. Your marketing team should choose a data analytics platform that will identify, unify and enrich all of your relevant data points. You’ll know it’s the proper platform when you see that it’s thoroughly aligning clean data with your marketing strategies. The ROI will be obvious.