The Importance of Marketing and Its Influence on a Company's Financial Performance

Recent years have seen an increased appreciation of the importance of marketing and of its significant contribution to financial performance. This paper uses mixed methods research in order to analyse the results collated from a survey and from secondary research in order to evaluate the contribution which is made by marketing to the financial performance of ice-hockey club Dinamo Riga. A random sample of ice-hockey Arena visitors was invited to the survey and there were 1200 respondents involved. The survey and research covers the time period of September 2014 to present time. It is argued that effective marketing strategies are likely to have a positive effect on the financial performance of an organization, by acting as a resource which can be utilised by the firm in order to create competitive advantage, thus increasing market share and profitability, and as a competency which can be used in order to improve financial performance by means of increasing customer satisfaction.