How to loop through entries by importance? I have a channel of entries I'd like to loop through by order of importance on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the most important and appearing first.

I tried to achieve this using a radio button field called importance and if else statements like:

{# List most important entries first #}
{% if entry.importance == "5" %}

    &lt;li class="deal"&gt;
        &lt;div class="brand-image-wrapper"&gt;
            {% if entry.logo | length %}
                {% for asset in entry.logo %}
                    &lt;img class="grayscale" src="{{ asset.url }}" alt="{{ image.title }}"&gt;
                {% endfor %}
            {% endif %}
        &lt;/div&gt;

        &lt;div class="info"&gt;
            &lt;h2 class="title"&gt;{{ entry.companyName }}&lt;/h2&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;{{ entry.description }}&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
    &lt;/li&gt;

    {% elseif entry.importance == "4" %}

        &lt;li class="deal"&gt;
            &lt;div class="brand-image-wrapper"&gt;
                {% if entry.logo | length %}
                    {% for asset in entry.logo %}
                        &lt;img class="grayscale" src="{{ asset.url }}" alt="{{ image.title }}"&gt;
                    {% endfor %}
                {% endif %}
            &lt;/div&gt;

            &lt;div class="info"&gt;
                &lt;h2 class="title"&gt;{{ entry.companyName }}&lt;/h2&gt;
                &lt;p&gt;{{ entry.description }}&lt;/p&gt;
            &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/li&gt;

        etc...


But this isn't very DRY and this lists the entries but they are still ordered by date. Is it possible to use .order with a field to achieve this?
Yes, you can use .order with any custom field, an example is below.

craft.entries.section( 'sectionHandle' ).order( 'customFieldHandle' )

For more info see the docs
https://craftcms.com/docs/templating/craft.entries#order