I’ve long believed that every marketer should go work in a start-up at least once in their career if for no other reason than this. You get a profound and intimate understanding of the relationship between marketing and sales as expressed through the lead. Without a lead, there is nothing.

Carleen draws a line between this and baseball. I really enjoyed “Moneyball,” by Michael Lewis chronicling the successful statistics-driven management of Oakland Athletics General Manager, Billy Beane.

Just as he has applied math to sport, it has an equally important role in marketing and communications.

While the five tips she provides are all good, this one is extremely pertinent…

Trust your data. Even when your intuition suggests otherwise. You have to have the courage and conviction to trust your data, and act on it, Nelson says. If your data says spending money on conferences like CES or Web 2.0 Summit does not convert to sales, don’t go — no matter how important you think it is to be seen at such events.

This is perhaps hardest for communicators to accept. So often we are swayed by the emotions of those around us the data gets lost. We’ve all be subject to the rant by a product marketer about how we are “getting out-PRed…”. Without data you have nothing. Without conviction in your data you are well and truly up the creek without a paddle.