Marketing can help businesses increase brand awareness, engagement and sales with promotional campaigns. No matter what area a business focuses on, they can take advantage of all the benefits marketing can offer and expand their reach. Marketing is a valuable tool for growing businesses, but to stay competitive and maximize return on investment (ROI), it’s important to approach marketing as a process and to use all the benefits it can provide. In this article, we define marketing and provide reasons marketing is important in business.

Why is marketing important?

The purpose of marketing is to help businesses grow efficiently and reach their highest potential for ROI by promoting brands, products and services. Marketing promotions usually focus on boosting content engagement, increasing sales of products and services and growing brand awareness. Marketing and promotions can be traditional, digital or both. Traditional marketing refers to print media, and digital marketing refers to digital media. Some traditional and digital marketing avenues include:

• Postal mail
• Billboards and posters
• Articles in print magazines or newspapers
• Email
• Social media
• Digital ads
• Blogs and posts online

Marketing may also use market research and analysis to determine where to target content and analytics—this can help with accurately tracking performance or engagement. For example, completing and analyzing market research may help a company determine where to place promotional ads, and later, marketing and sales analytics can provide information about the effectiveness of those ads.

5 reasons marketing is important in business

It’s important to remember that marketing is a process, and to market your business, it might require some time and attention to detail. However, there are many benefits to executing a comprehensive marketing strategy, including:

1. Brand awareness

Brand awareness refers to how recognizable an organization is based on its logo, style and reputation. Brand awareness helps businesses retain customers and reach new ones. Effective marketing can help generate brand awareness by placing a brand where consumers or other businesses might see it. For example, a brand whose target audience is kids might place their products in children’s stores or place ads for their products during children’s television programs to expand their reach. Brand awareness is also important because consumers often want something they are familiar with, whether they are trying something new or performing a daily task. A consumer who is used to a specific toothpaste brand, for example, may purchase that brand over one they are unfamiliar with, even if the less familiar brand is cheaper and has the same ingredients. If you are looking to grow your organization, consider using some of these brand awareness marketing strategies:

• Developing brand identity
• Strategizing ways to position your brand
• Using social media to expand brand recognition

2. Engagement and communication

Engagement marketing refers to in-person or online interactions and communications a business might use to promote its products and services. A business may engage with customers or other businesses through social media, email or customer service. One marketing strategy that can help your business engage customers is creating social media and SEO content like blogs or articles. Using this method may help boost customer engagement develop lasting relationships because you can customize your content to your target audience’s interests. Communication marketing is also important because it can influence how customers view businesses. For example, a business with the right balance of informative emails and incentives, like promotional discounts, may help persuade customers to re-engage with the business. These positive effects might include increases in sales, customer loyalty and customer referrals. If you are interested in boosting your business’s engagement and customer communications, consider using these marketing strategies:

• Creating engaging and interactive content
• Using data to understand customers
• Promoting user-generated content

3. Personalization

Personalization marketing is when businesses customize experiences for individual customers. A business’s email communication to a customer may address them directly by using their name, or they might receive special promotions based on their relationship with the business if they are a member. This type of personalization marketing might make a consumer more likely to read the entire email and use the business’s product or service in the future. Another way you can use personalized marketing is by letting customers choose which advertisement they want to view. For example, if a business is paying for an ad on a streaming service, they may give viewers the option to choose between two ads based on a short preview. This allows the ad experience to feel more personalized, which can build loyalty and interest. If your business wants to personalize its marketing, use strategies like these:

• Creating customized messages
• Targeting customers based on location
• Promoting similar products

4. Sales

Marketing is important for sales because it can inform consumers about what a business offers, its value and what sets it apart from competitors. For example, a business offering tax services might call attention to how they make doing taxes easier. Campaigns like this can help encourage customers to buy the products or services your business offers. Marketing can also target individuals or groups who may be more likely to buy a business’s product or service. A business may use its analytics to re-target former customers who all bought a similar product when releasing an updated version of the product. If your business needs to increase sales, these marketing strategies may help:

• Implementing specialty marketing campaigns
• Highlighting benefits
• Identifying networking opportunities

5. Analytics

Marketing analytics can provide data and numbers to help professionals make informed marketing decisions that will achieve the greatest ROI. A business may use marketing analytics to identify audiences who previously didn’t engage with their business, then develop future campaigns that specifically address those audiences to engage them. Strategically using information from marketing analytics may help maximize a company’s chances of increasing sales or consumer engagement. Businesses can also use marketing analytics to document their growth, which can be important when deciding whether to expand and when sharing statistics with investors or board directors.Other ways to use marketing analytics are:

• Identifying market changes
• Tracking customer engagement
• Examining sales and market trends