What does it take to be a champion?After having a chance to reflect on this year’s #MKTGnation Summit, I can confidently say that being a marketing champion isn’t just about being the best (though that does help), it’s about striving to be better.This means keeping on top of industry advancements and understanding how to use today’s and tomorrow’s marketing tools to ask better questions, articulate needs and expectations more effectively, and efficiently leverage the skills of your marketing team.For my second Marketo Summit, I was joined by PR Newswire’s Asmita Singh, Vice President, Digital Experience & Marketing Optimization; Tanuj Gupta, Marketing Optimization Analytics; Scott Abbate, Program Manager, Channel Marketing; and Ken Wincko, our Senior Vice President of Marketing who also delivered one of the #MKTGnation keynotes.Here are a few of the lessons my colleagues and I took home from Marketo’s University Day, the Champion sessions and networking with other passionate marketers.Analytics > Data.During his session, Jason Kodish, Global Chief Data Scientist for Digitas LBi, asserted the importance of data, analytics, and geeks.Businesses have long made decisions based on data. Not so much on analytics. The difference is data tells you that you sold five units, whereas analytics help you drive better-informed sales efforts by understanding the whats, whys, and hows of the five units you sold.As analytics geeks, it was refreshing to witness this powerful sentiment associated with the craft of data science. 

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