Numerous studies emphasize how central analytics is to business strategy. The CFO Alliance’s sentiment study highlighted the role of Marketing execution and performance in company success. A top strategic factor to achieving growth depends on how well Marketing impacts customer engagement and enables the company to tap new markets. Both of these capabilities require solid data and analytics skills and the ability to transform analysis into business insights.

A study by Salesforce revealed that high-performing organizations already place analytics at the core of their operations. With the amount of data available continuing to explode, every organization is struggling to make sense of it and onboard stronger analytics skills.

Answer 7 Questions to Secure a Yes for Building Internal Analytics Skills

This has led to numerous conversations with our customers about adding analytics skills and talent to the Marketing team. Many have been lobbying for this position for a long time, without success, and have come to us to help them prepare proposals that show the Return on Investment (ROI) and to craft job descriptions. Here are just some of the questions you want to be able to answer and document to help you secure a “yes” from the C-Suite for this key role:

What is best practice for the function’s scope, role, and purpose?
What decisions will be made based on the analytics, and in what priority order?
What and where is the data that the new person will be accessing?
What is the data capture and management plan?
What are the specific customer or market insights needed?
How will the person’s contribution be measured?
Will they serve the team in a broader capacity, e.g., marketing ops, performance management, and reporting?

Adding this capability to your professional arsenal and team is a great win. Demonstrating how it will prove and improve the value of Marketing will create an even more important win! Contact us for help with building your analytics muscle.

FAQ:

(written by Penn of Sintra.ai)

Q1: Why are analytics skills now central to business strategy and growth?
A: Because growth increasingly depends on how well Marketing improves customer engagement and helps the company tap new markets—capabilities that require strong data and analytics skills and the ability to translate analysis into decision-grade business insights. Multiple studies reinforce that analytics is no longer a support function; it is a strategic capability.

Q2: What are high-performing organizations doing differently with analytics?
A: They place analytics at the core of operations. As data volume continues to explode, organizations that build stronger analytics capability are better positioned to make sense of complexity, improve execution, and sustain performance.

Q3: Why do Marketing leaders often struggle to secure approval for analytics talent?
A: Because “we need analytics” is not a business case. Many leaders have advocated for analytics roles for years without success because they cannot clearly articulate scope, decision impact, data readiness, and how the role will be measured—elements the C-Suite needs to justify investment.

Q4: What questions should you answer to secure a “yes” for building internal analytics skills?
A: Be prepared to answer and document these seven questions:

What is best practice for the function’s scope, role, and purpose?
What decisions will be made based on the analytics—and in what priority order?
What and where is the data the new person will access?
What is the data capture and management plan?
What specific customer or market insights are needed?
How will the person’s contribution be measured?
Will they serve the team more broadly (e.g., Marketing Ops, performance management, reporting)?

Q5: What is the strategic payoff of adding analytics capability to Marketing?
A: It strengthens Marketing’s ability to prove and improve value—by enabling better decisions, clearer performance management, and stronger linkage between Marketing execution and business outcomes. That combination is what turns an analytics hire from a “cost” into a measurable growth investment.