Could your marketing team use a few encouraging words as they build their marketing strategy or branch out into different forms of marketing, such as email marketing, social media marketing, or video marketing? Whether you’re looking for some classic quotes from famous wordsmiths or you want to introduce some powerful words from modern marketing thought leaders, these inspiring quotes might be just the motivator you need for an effective team.
To make it easier to find different kinds of inspiring marketing quotes, we’ve broken our selections down into the following categories:
- Marketing Strategy Quotes
- Content Marketing Quotes
- Customer-First Marketing Quotes
- Famous Marketing Quotes
- Funny Marketing Quotes
Marketing Strategy Quotes
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1. “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.”
– David Packard
The breakdown: Good marketers know that it’s not solely the marketing team that makes magic happen. Instead, several teams have their hands in a company’s marketing strategy, from designers to researchers to customer support specialists. The more diverse the expertise, the better.
– David Meerman Scott
The breakdown: Marketing should never feel as though it’s worming its way into a customer’s buying journey. Instead, it should meet the customer exactly where they need it.
3. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
– Simon Sinek
The breakdown: Customers generally want to know that there’s a meaning behind a product or service. Showcase the “why” in your marketing through connective storytelling.
– Peter F. Drucker
The breakdown: Effective marketing helps products and services sell without needing to be pushy because campaigns address customer needs and hit precise customer pain points.
5. “The best marketing strategy ever: CARE.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk
The breakdown: Vaynerchuk is known for his marketing strategy of truly connecting with customers rather than focusing on sales. This quote spotlights the need for caring about customers and their needs, which will, in turn, help sell.
– David Ogilvy
The breakdown: Confusing or misleading marketing doesn’t bode well for most companies. Customers want trust and transparency from the companies they buy from.
7. “Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.”
– Joe Chernov
The breakdown: An effective marketing strategy leaves customers feeling as though they made the right decision by purchasing your product or service.
8. “If your competitors start copying you, then you are doing something right!”
– Jay Baer
The breakdown: Companies often want to hop on trends that are working. If you notice competitors modeling their marketing efforts on your successful ones, then your company is doing something worth mimicking.
9. “Market like the year you are in.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk
The breakdown: It’s important to tailor a marketing strategy to today’s customers. Some strategies that worked ten years ago are likely obsolete today, while others require an updated approach in order to achieve success.
10. “Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately, it takes a lifetime to master.”
– Phil Kotler
The breakdown: Marketing is always changing because customers and their needs are always evolving. Train your marketing teams to create fluid strategies that they can continue to adapt to meet customer needs.
11. “Starting and being consistent and not giving up is more important than being brilliant.”
– Mark Schaefer
The breakdown: Marketing teams may face several challenges as they develop a workable strategy. As long as they keep pushing through those challenges to figure out what works, they’ll succeed.
12. “Smart brands don’t just ride trend shifts. They start them.”
– Ann Handley
The breakdown: Remember what we said about trends and copycats? You don’t want to be the copycat. Trendsetters are the ones that have the biggest potential in growing their audiences and building a brand.
Content Marketing Quotes
Image by Diggity Marketing from Pixabay
– Bill Gates
The breakdown: This is easily one of the most well-known marketing quotes in today’s world of content at our fingertips, which was originally stated in an essay by Bill Gates. Content envelopes a broad spectrum, from social media to print magazines, and it’s all an integral part of a marketing plan.
14. “Storytelling is by far the most underrated skill when it comes to business.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk
The breakdown: Telling compelling stories gives brands a voice and a more human-like personality. Businesses with unique storytelling skills can connect to customers on a new level by speaking directly to their needs.
15. “Content is the atomic particle of all digital marketing.”
– Rebecca Lieb
The breakdown: When you think about it, digital marketing stems from content in every form. Nailing down your content strategy will improve your digital marketing strategy.
16. “If great content is the hero, then banners are the villain.”
– Michael Brenner
The breakdown: Although banner ads still work, customers are more likely to respond to effective content than a banner ad on a website.
– Michael Brenner
The breakdown: Your social media and banner ads stop when your budget stops. However, an informative piece of content remains on your site for as long as you want it to, which could continue to bring you customers without lifting a finger — or paying more money.
18. “Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.”
– Jay Baer
The breakdown: Social media allows you to share great content with your audience. Always remember to build a solid social media strategy to boost your content marketing.
19. “Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it.”
– Michael Brenner
The breakdown: Content marketing requires storytelling to thrive, and executives aren’t usually known for their storytelling skills. Who is? Excellent copywriters.
20. “Content is the reason search began in the first place.”
– Lee Odden
The breakdown: Think about it: You search to find content that answers your questions or fills a need. When your team creates content, make sure it focuses on search intent.
Customer-First Marketing Quotes
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels
21. “Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.”
– Beth Comstock
The breakdown: The first step in marketing is to thoroughly understand what you’re marketing. Then, it’s knowing the ins and outs of your audience and learning to adjust your strategy to give customers what they need.
22. “Clients don’t care about the labor pains; they want to see the baby.”
– Tim Williams
The breakdown: The best marketing strategies aren’t forced and don’t reveal flaws in the system. Instead, they’re natural and have an ease about them, making it easier for customers to connect with your company.
23. “Don’t build links. Build relationships.”
– Rand Fishkin
The breakdown: Linkbuilding is something that’s frequently discussed among marketers, but building links won’t get you anywhere if you don’t first build connections with your audience.
– Joei Chan
The breakdown: Get feedback from customers frequently through various methods, such as surveys, social listening, and sentiment analysis. Their criticism and praise can mold the future of your company.
– Maya Angelou
The breakdown: Again, we see that storytelling is the key to winning over a customer.
26. “The customer expects you to have knowledge of their stuff, not just your stuff.”
– Jeffrey Gitomer
The breakdown: Successful companies know what their customers want and need just as much as they know what their products or services can achieve.
– Melanie Deziel
The breakdown: Marketing teams don’t always need to pump out new content to succeed. Repurposing content is a powerful act that can turn existing content into something new and just as useful.
– Ben Chestnut
The breakdown: 64 percent of consumers say they’ve switched to a competitor following a poor customer experience, so it’s essential to focus on providing exceptional customer experiences at every touchpoint and meeting your customers’ most important needs.
29. “Our head of social media is the customer.”
– McDonald’s
The breakdown: Customers drive social media marketing because they’re the ones who share and engage with content. Market your content to them, and you’ll probably be successful.
– Seth Godin
The breakdown: Genuine connections are a priority when it comes to marketing. That’s why it’s important to develop your brand personality and connect with customers on a human-to-human level.
31. “Listen to your customers, not your competitors.”
– Joel Spolsky
The breakdown: Knowing what your competitors are doing is important, but they don’t contribute to your revenue; your customers, however, do.
32. “Instead of marketing to the masses, be irresistible to a specific group of people.”
– Jeremy Gutsche
The breakdown: Research has shown that finding your niche group of customers and marketing to them usually has better results than trying to catch a broad group of people in your net.
– Bruce Ernst
The breakdown: Each of these platforms can bring in customers, but those customers won’t stick around if you have a weak marketing strategy that fails to connect the dots for them.
34. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
– Bill Gates
The breakdown: There’s a lot to be said about the pivotal learning moments that come from failures. Use failures with customers as the driving force behind a shift in your marketing strategy.
35. “The best advertising you can have is a loyal customer spreading the word about how incredible your business is.”
– Shep Hyken
The breakdown: Never stop marketing to your customers in authentic ways. The more you connect with them and fill their needs, the more likely they’ll be to share what they love about your company with others.
Famous Marketing Quotes
36. “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”
– Henry Ford
The breakdown: You can’t cut corners on an effective marketing strategy. Always make room in the budget for solid marketing.
37. “Deadlines are the greatest source of inspiration.”
– Mark Twain
The breakdown: Try not to be too hard on your team if the clock is ticking closer to crunch time. During these last moments, they might come up with the best ideas.
38. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
– Henry Ford
The breakdown: Your team’s thoughts shape their progress. Be a source of motivation to encourage your marketing team to keep doing their best work.
39. “Don’t make excuses, make improvements.”
– Neil Patel
The breakdown: Mistakes and failures are going to happen in marketing. However, avoid making excuses about them. Simply dust yourself off and work to improve your strategy.
40. “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
– Steve Jobs
The breakdown: Jobs famously made this statement to indicate that taking risks is necessary in business. Without risks in marketing, you’ll never start trends or open the doors to inviting new, diverse audiences.
41. “Learn the rules like a pro so that you can break them like an artist.”
– Pablo Picasso
The breakdown: Learning marketing skills is a must, but knowing what to do with those skills to boost your marketing strategy is even more necessary.
Funny Marketing Quotes
Screenshot via JayKrish.com
42. “The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife. Do not insult her intelligence.”
– David Ogilvy
The breakdown: Marketers should always remember that customers are real people, just like people you know, love, and respect. Keep that in mind when tailoring your marketing strategy.
– Jeffrey Zeldman
The breakdown: The point Zeldman makes here is that marketing should never feel like marketing. Instead, use stories and genuine conversation to build relationships and generate leads.
44. “Never let ads write checks your website can’t cash.”
– Avinash Kaushik
The breakdown: Be realistic in your marketing. If customers find out that what you advertise isn’t exactly what they’ll receive, they certainly won’t become repeat customers — and they could prevent other people from becoming customers.
– David Beebe
The breakdown: Continuous self-promotion alienates your audience. Market to your customers’ needs, not your own.
46. “Customers are like teeth. Ignore them and they’ll go away.”
– Jerry Flanagan
The breakdown: A surefire way to lose customers is by not giving them what they need.
47. “If you build it… you may still need Google AdWords.”
– Jennifer Mesenbrink
The breakdown: Even the best marketing strategy could be bolstered by the help of Google AdWords. Ads in the #1 position in Google search results see an average click-through rate of 7.94%.
– Dwight Schrute (character from The Office)
The breakdown: This quote may come from a TV character, but it has a firm place in marketing, where there’s no room for silly mistakes.
49. “The best place to hide a dead body is page two of Google.”
– Dharmesh Shah
The breakdown: Do you commonly scroll to see results on page two of Google? Probably not. There’s a good chance your customers won’t, either. Optimize content for that first-page spot.
– Chris Penn
The breakdown: Your customers won’t care what you’re selling if you don’t find a way to explain to them how it could serve them.
A marketing strategy is multi-faceted, requiring in-depth analysis of your ideal customer, their needs and primary pain points, and their behaviors, and applying those insights to a carefully thought-out strategy that includes content marketing, SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, paid advertising, and other methods to reach your target audience.
Given the complexity of developing and executing marketing campaigns, marketers welcome tools and techniques that save time and boost results. For an effortless way to spread brand awareness, install social media share buttons on your blog or website. Share buttons make it easy for your visitors to share your content and spread the word about your business — while also providing you with valuable insights that can inform your marketing strategy, such as the types of content your audience finds most engaging and is most likely to share.
