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If you do not love data analytics, it will be hard to become an analytics rock star. No significant accomplishments are achieved without passion. For many people, passion does not come naturally; it must be developed. Cultivate passion by setting goals and achieving them. Realize that the best opportunity in your life is the one in front of you right now. Focus on it, grow it, and develop your passion for it! That excitement will become obvious to those around you.

Dig down deeper about the business details of your company. What, exactly, does your company do? What are some of its challenges and opportunities? How would the company benefit from valuable and transformative information you can deliver? Take the time necessary to learn the skills that are valuable for your business and your career. Keep up-to-date with the latest technologies and available analytics tools -- learn and understand their capabilities, functions, and differences.

Deepen your knowledge with the tools that you are currently working on by picking new techniques and methodologies that make you a better professional in the field.

Improve your presentation and speaking skills, even if it is on your own time. Excellent and no-cost presentation training resources are readily available on the internet (for example, at http://www.mindtools.com/page8.html. Practice writing and giving presentations to friends and colleagues that will give you honest feedback. Once you have practiced the basic skills, you need to enhance your skills by improving your

You must be able to explain, justify, and "sell" your ideas to colleagues as well as business management. Organizational change does not happen overnight or as a result of one presentation. You need to be persistent and skillful in taking your ideas all the way up the leadership chain.

Tough analytics problems typically don't have an obvious answer -- that's why they're tough! Take the initiative by digging deep into those problems without being asked. Throw out all the assumptions made so far and follow logical trial and error methodology. First, develop a thesis about possible contributors to the problem at hand. Second, run the analytics to prove the thesis. Learn from that outcome and start over, if needed, until a significant answer is found. You are now well on your way to rock star status.

1) Your First-Party Data: The primary and most valuable data set you can access, first-party data encompasses transactional and other customer-level profile information you have on your customers. It could also include your own off-line segmentation analysis that allows you to map a customer to a customer profile around which you build your marketing programs. This can also include your analytics or other on-site tracking data, which can deliver behavioral insight to your consumers. This data can be difficult to export from its current environment due to the ad hoc nature of the data, but, if possible, look at ways to make this information accessible to your digital sites. 2) Third-Party Data: A consumer's broader Web browsing and buying history can now be accessed in session to provide you with more context on their likes and habits. Data management platforms (DMPs) and other data aggregators are accelerating this offering and, just as importantly, the availability of this type of data. This is invaluable in the context of new visitors who you know nothing about historically. 3) Real-Time Behavior: Let's not forget what our customers are telling us with each click. We get enamored with our predictive modeling to the point that we do not see the tell-tale signs as they are happening. Take the time to stop, look, and react. Your analytic tools, personalization tools, and other software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms can help you trigger alternate site experiences based on every click you see.

Will it work for Outlook, Gmail or whichever email provider your company uses? 

Does you CRM have full social media integration? It’s vital that any customers or clients interacting with you on social channels can be included in your CRM updates. You will find this happens increasingly as your public facing channels become more popular. For more detailed information download our best practice guide CRM in the social age.  

Do you have a fully CRM trained analytics team that can study and understand the data and reports the system will generate? It’s probably wise to implement a cleansing plan for your existing data before the new system is implemented. Sifting through contacts to remove any duplicated or defunct leads.

Having an extra piece of software in the company, especially one as integral as this, means there’s a lot more to manage and possibly to go wrong. Make sure you have the technical support in place to ensure its smooth running.