Every two days we create as much data as we did from the beginning of time until the year 2000. That's according to business author Bernard Marr.

As a small business owner, you might be collecting data on anything from the number of people visiting your website to what products in your online or physical store are selling the best and perhaps even the buying preferences of your customers.

Data can help you determine which online marketing content is most effective, what products to stock up on and which to phase out and even which customers to send email or text messages to when their favorite items go on sale. With this explosion of data and nearly limitless storage capacity, businesses of all sizes have the potential to extract greater business intelligence than ever before. However, for data to be valuable, you must harness it. Inc. explains how businesses must collect data, process and analyze it, and tease out insights from it.