Why Is Marketing Important? 7 Reasons Every Business Needs a Strategy
| 7 Min Read
Marketing is important because it connects businesses to the customers who need them, generating awareness, building trust and driving revenue. CEOs who place marketing at the core of their growth strategy are twice as likely as their peers to post more than 5% annual revenue growth, according to McKinsey research conducted with the Association of National Advertisers. Without marketing, even the best product remains invisible.
Marketing is the process of identifying, reaching and persuading customers to choose a product or service over competing alternatives. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” For businesses of every size, marketing determines whether the right people know you exist.
That determination touches every function of a business, from the price it can charge to the channels it uses to reach new customers. Benedictine University’s online Master of Business Administration (MBA) program, which includes a Digital Marketing concentration, prepares business leaders to make these decisions strategically rather than by instinct alone.
Key Takeaways
- Marketing is important because it builds awareness, earns customer trust and creates the conditions for sustained revenue growth.
- Businesses that put a documented strategy behind their marketing consistently outperform those that market without one.
- Different channels serve different goals; email and search tend to deliver the most direct, measurable return, while content and social build awareness and trust over time.
- Retaining an existing customer is reliably cheaper than acquiring a new one, which is why retention marketing pays off alongside acquisition efforts.
Why Is Marketing Important for Business Success?
Marketing is important for business success because it creates the conditions in which sales can happen. Without marketing, a business relies on word-of-mouth alone, limiting reach, predictability and scale.
Among B2B marketers who saw their content strategy grow more effective over the past year, 74% credit the improvement to refining their strategy, not new technology or bigger budgets, according to Content Marketing Institute research. Forrester research similarly finds that firms with strong alignment across marketing, sales and other customer-facing functions report 2.4 times higher revenue growth and 2 times higher profit growth than firms without that alignment.
Key Stat: Firms with strong alignment across marketing and other customer-facing functions report 2.4 times higher revenue growth and 2 times higher profit growth than firms without that alignment (Forrester, 2023).
7 Reasons Marketing Is Essential to Every Business
The reasons marketing matters span the entire customer lifecycle, from the first time a prospect hears about a company to the moment they become a repeat customer. The seven reasons below cover how marketing builds a business from initial awareness through long-term brand value.
- Marketing creates awareness: A business cannot generate revenue from customers who do not know it exists. Marketing, through search, social media, advertising, content and outreach, places the brand in front of the right audience at the right moment.
- Marketing builds trust: Consistent, credible marketing signals reliability. Eighty percent of people say they trust the brands they use, more than they trust business, media, government or NGOs in general, according to Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer Special Report on brand trust.
- Marketing drives revenue: CEOs who place marketing at the core of their growth strategy are twice as likely as their peers to post more than 5% annual revenue growth, according to McKinsey. That advantage compounds when marketing works in lockstep with sales rather than in a silo, since aligned, customer-facing functions consistently outperform disconnected ones.
- Marketing differentiates in competitive markets: In markets where products are functionally similar, marketing creates the perception gaps that drive preference. Positioning, a core marketing discipline, is how businesses claim defensible territory in crowded categories.
- Marketing retains existing customers: Acquiring a new customer can cost 5 to 25 times more than retaining an existing one, depending on the industry, according to Harvard Business Review. Email marketing, loyalty programs and re-engagement campaigns reduce churn and increase customer lifetime value.
- Marketing informs product development: Taking the Voice of Customer (VOC), or “what is wanted,” and transforming it into a deliverable is a mixture of science and art. Market research tells businesses what customers need before investing in building it. The marketing function serves as the Voice of Market (VOM) champion throughout the design phase.
- Marketing builds long-term brand equity: Brand equity is the premium a company earns because customers prefer it over functionally equivalent alternatives. Brands like Nike and Patagonia command price premiums that cannot be explained by product features alone; they are products of sustained marketing investment over time.
Together, these seven reasons show that marketing is not a single tactic but a connected set of functions that carry a business from a customer’s first exposure to a brand through years of repeat purchases. Skipping any one of them, whether awareness, trust or retention, leaves a gap competitors are usually quick to fill.
Key Insight: “Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value.” – Philip Kotler, Professor Emeritus, Kellogg School of Management.
Marketing Channel ROI: Recent Data
The reasons above explain why marketing matters in principle. The channel-level data below shows what that return looks like in practice, and why most marketing budgets are split across several channels rather than concentrated in one, a principle Benedictine University’s online MBA program covers in depth through its marketing and analytics coursework.
| Channel | Median ROI | Primary Use |
| Email marketing | $36 per $1 spent (Litmus, 2025) | Retention, loyalty, announcements |
| Content / SEO | Highest-rated ROI channel among marketers (HubSpot, 2026) | Long-term awareness and lead generation |
| Paid search (PPC) | $2 profit per $1 spent (Google Economic Impact Report) | Immediate demand capture |
| Social media advertising | Up to 5x with strong creative, such as visible branding (Meta/Analytic Partners via Sprout Social) | Awareness and retargeting |
These figures vary by industry, audience and execution, so they work best as a starting benchmark rather than a guarantee. Most businesses see the strongest results from combining channels rather than relying on any single one.
The Importance of a Documented Marketing Strategy
A documented marketing strategy is an organizational asset that aligns product, pricing, distribution and communication decisions around a coherent understanding of the customer. Without strategy, marketing produces inconsistent signals and spend that cannot be tied to outcomes.
The four Ps of marketing, product, price, place and promotion, remain the core strategic framework, extended for service businesses to the 7 Ps by adding people, process and physical evidence. Together, these elements give a business a repeatable structure for decision-making instead of reacting to each new channel or competitor one at a time. An MBA with a digital marketing concentration, such as Benedictine University’s, develops the analytical and strategic skills to lead these functions.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions below cover the most common follow-ups about why marketing matters and how it drives measurable business results. Each answer builds on a point made earlier in the article, so they also work well as a quick, standalone reference.
Why is marketing important for business success?
Marketing is important for business success because it creates awareness, trust and demand, the conditions that make revenue growth possible. Organizations with documented marketing strategies are measurably more likely to hit revenue goals than those without, per Content Marketing Institute research.
What are the benefits of marketing for small businesses?
Marketing levels the competitive playing field for small businesses. Digital channels, including search, social, email and content, allow targeted audience reach at fractions of traditional advertising cost. The greatest benefit is predictable lead generation: converting marketing spend into a measurable pipeline.
How does marketing help a business grow?
Marketing drives growth through four compounding levers: expanding the addressable customer base (awareness), improving conversion rates (messaging), increasing customer retention (loyalty) and surfacing product improvement opportunities (market research).
Why is a marketing strategy important?
A marketing strategy ensures every customer-facing decision reinforces the same brand message and serves the same target customer. Without strategy, marketing produces inconsistent signals and spend that cannot be tied to outcomes.
About Benedictine University
Benedictine University is a private Catholic university in Lisle, Illinois, founded in 1887 as St. Procopius College by Benedictine monks and renamed Benedictine University in 1996. The university’s business programs are rooted in the Benedictine tradition of scholarship and service, and Benedictine has been recognized among the Best Regional Universities in the Midwest by U.S. News & World Report.
Benedictine’s online MBA program is AACSB-accredited, a distinction held by only 6% of business schools worldwide, and requires no GMAT or GRE for admission. Students can complete the degree in as little as 12 to 24 months and choose from four optional concentrations, including Digital Marketing, to build specialized expertise in the areas covered in this article.