Best Marketing Quotes

The best marketing quotes make us think — how can we apply this insight to our business?

To find and assemble this great collection of quotes, we went to the most brilliant marketers we could find. Our sources include great copywriters, successful product marketers, and outstanding company leaders. We carved the best quotes down from the best to the “best of the best.”

You’ll probably want to read these several times throughout the year and see which quotes resonate with you and your business at the time of your readings. Enjoy!

Best Marketing Quotes

1.) Don’t tell me how good you make it; tell me how good it makes me when I use it.
Leo Burnett

2.) Marketing is a race without a finishing line.
Philip Kotler, Marketing Insights from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know

3.) The easy way to get into a person’s mind is to be first.
Al Ries, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

4.) Without publicity, a terrible thing happens — nothing.
P.T. Barnum

5.) Be provocative. But be sure your provocativeness stems from your product. You are not right if in your ad you stand a man on his head just to get attention. You are right if you have him on his head to show how your product keeps things from falling out of his pockets.
Bill Bernbach

6.) Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.
Joe Chernov

8.) The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.
Dale Carnegie

9.) The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

​​10.) Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating. You know you can’t bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them into buying it.
David Ogilvy

Good Marketing Sayings

It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.
Elon Musk

Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.
Al Reis

Picasso had a saying – good artists copy, great artists steal – and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
Steve Jobs

See Best Research Quotes and Captions.

In the fool’s mind, there are many choices; in the wise man’s mind, there are few.
Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business

Marketing used to be about making a myth and telling it. Now it’s about telling a truth and sharing it.
Marc Mathieu

Do not be embarrassed by your failures; learn from them and start again.
Richard Branson

A brand is a voice, and a product is a souvenir.
Lisa Gansky

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.
Mary Kay Ash, Inventor of Network Marketing

Since 95 percent of the people are imitators and only 5 percent initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer.
Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.
Bill Bernbach

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Branding And Messaging Quotes

When the tools of production are available to everyone, everyone becomes a producer.
Chris Anderson, The Long Tail: Why the Future is Selling Less of More

Help your customers, and you help your business.
Leo Burnett

Laughter is timeless; imagination has no age; dreams are forever.
Walt Disney

Are you like a subway station with banner ads flying by the commuters who are just trying to get to their destination, or are you like a cafe where customers mingle and feel like they belong? MIngling creates buzz.
Steve Jurvetson and Tim Draper, as quoted in Emanuel Rosen’s Buzz: Real-life Lesson in Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

Make your customer the hero of your stories.
Ann Handley

My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.
Steve Jobs

​​I don’t watch television, and I don’t go to meetings. So I have seven more hours every day than everybody else. And in those 7 hours, if I do 2 hours of productive work and spend 5 hours walking around noticing things, that’s a good day.
Seth Godin

If I was down to my last dollar of my marketing budget, I’d spend it on PR.
Bill Gates

See Best Management Quotes.

The Art of Marketing

Along with the fragmentation of markets is coming the fragmentation of marketing.
Chris Anderson, The Long Tail: Why the Future is Selling Less of More

The art of marketing is largely the art of brand building. When something is not a brand, it will be probably be viewed as a commodity.
Phillip Kotler, Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win, and Dominate Markets

Building your brand doesn’t take millions. It takes imagination.
Harry Beckwith

Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.
Andrew Davis

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
Peter Drucker

When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.
Leo Burnett

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Bill Gates

See 125 Motivational Sales Quotations.

Marketing Ideas

The more you tell, the more you sell.
David Ogilvy

The sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more people, more often, and at higher prices. There is no other reason to do it.
Sergio Zyman

Unless your advertising has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.
David Ogilvy

Even when you are marketing to your entire audience or customer base, you are still simply speaking to a single human at any given time.
Ann Handley

It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than doubling your traffic.
Bryan Eisenberg

A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.
Robert B. Cialdini

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou

Human Resources Quotations and HR Captions

Innovation

Business has only two functions—marketing and innovation.
Milan Kundera

We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.
Craig Davis

While good strategy content is based on a compelling value proposition for buyers with a robust profit proposition for the organization, sustainable strategy execution is based largely on a motivating-people proposition.
W. Chan Kim, Blue Ocean Strategy

Marketing is the creative use of truth
Philip Kotler

When you find bad news, I say: Get it right, get it fast, get it out, get it over.
Warren Buffett

See Accountant Quotes and Captions.

Products and Customers Quotations

Experiences that don’t involve touching, seeing, or feeling actual results, such as being presented with an abstract sheet of numbers, are shown to be non-impactful and easily forgotten.
W. Chan Kim, Blue Ocean Strategy

Nobody reads ads; people read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.
Eugene Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising for Copywriters

Sell to people who are listening.
Seth Godin

There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different but to manipulate what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.
Al Reis

Leverage the strength that you have: that no one else can be you.
Todd Wheatland

Embarrassment is a villain to be crushed.
Robert Cialdini

Engaging content is far more about brains than budget.
Ann Handley

Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating. You know you can’t bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them into buying it.
David Ogilvy

Acquaintances give us moments; friends give us hours; good friends give us days.
Harry Beckwith

See Purchasing Quotes and Captions.

Branding Quotes

Focus on the core problem your business solves and put out lots of content and enthusiasm, and ideas about how to solve that problem.
Laura Fitton

Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.
David Packard

You need to create ridiculously good content – content that is useful, enjoyable, and inspired.
Ann Handley

Marketing is the homework that we do before we have a product
Philip Kotler

Often we don’t realize that our attitude toward something has been influenced by the number of times we have been exposed to it in the past.
Robert B. Cialdini

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
Bill Bernbach

Marketing takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master.
Phil Kolter

See 27 Best Quotes of All-Time.

Marketing Leadership

Before you can have a share of the market, you must have a share of mind.
Leo Burnett

Research has shown that 63 percent of Americans will pay as much as 36 percent more to patronize a business that is environmentally friendly.
Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business

The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there.
Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us

You can’t expect to just write and have visitors come to you – that’s too passive.
Anita Campbell

Think bigger, braver, and bolder. The biggest missed opportunity in content marketing is playing it too safe.
Ann Handley

It isn’t just creation and promotion; it is a process as well. I think that’s what a lot of people forget.
Neil Patel

Good things happen when you narrow your focus.
Al Reis

Marketing’s Objective Quotes

The mind, as a defense against the volume of today’s communications, screens and rejects much of the information offered it. In general, the mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience.
Al Ries

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
Peter F. Drucker

Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

To me, marketing is about values. It’s a complicated and noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us.
Steve Jobs

Being unafraid of making mistakes makes everything easy for me. Not worrying about what people think frees you to do things, and doing things allows you to win or learn from your loss—which means you win either way. Hear me now: you are better off being wrong ten times and being right three than you are if you try only three times and always get it right.
Gary Vaynerchuk, Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too

Simply put, there is no substitute for meeting and listening to dissatisfied customers directly.
W. Chan Kim, Blue Ocean Strategy

Content Marketing Sayings

Content marketing is really like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, there won’t be a second date.
David Beebe

People seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value.
Robert B. Cialdini

Too often, feeling intimidated becomes our excuse not to be awesome.
Scott Stratten

Clients don’t care about the labor pains; they want to see the baby.
Tim Williams

When people feel insecure about something, they look around for validation. Show them that other people trust you.
Francisco Rosales

In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn’t necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it.
Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us

Marketing Insights

Master the topic, the message, and the delivery.
Steve Jobs

Getting your product known isn’t the answer. Getting it wanted is the answer.
Bill Bernbach

Copy is assembled; you do not write a copy; you assemble it.
Eugene Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising for Copywriters

You will never have a second chance to make a first impression.
Will Rogers

Go the extra mile; it’s never crowded.
Unknown

It raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exaltation to admit one’s mistakes.
Dale Carnegie

If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Marketing is really just about sharing your passion.
Michael Hyatt

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
Tony Robbins

Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.
Beth Comstock

If you’re a good marketing person, you have to be a little crazy.
Jim Metcalf

Short Marketing Quotes

Focus on the present — It’s the best gift you can give yourself.
Carrie Kerpen

If you’re looking for the next big thing, and you’re looking where everyone else is, you’re looking in the wrong place.
Mark Cuban

Marketing is the ability to hit the mark.
Philip Kotler

Most of us have experienced wow moments. We just haven’t taken time to think deeply about them.
Michael Hyatt

When you try to be everything, you wind up being nothing.
Al Ries

It is no longer enough to satisfy your customers. You must delight them
Philip Kotler

The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.
Tom Fishburne

What you don’t do is surrender. You might retreat occasionally, but you don’t give up.
Chris Brogan

Make your marketing so useful; people will pay you for it.
Jay Baer

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.
Henry Ford

Be where the world is going.
Beth Comstock

Motivating Marketing Quotes

The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.
David Ogilvy

To find a unique position, you must ignore conventional logic. Conventional logic says you find your concept inside yourself or inside the product. Not true. What you must do is look inside the prospect’s mind.
Al Ries, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.
David Ogilvy

Think big, and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.
Tim Ferriss

You are not your resume. You are your work.
Seth Godin

Nothing is impossible; The word itself says ‘I’m possible!’”
Audrey Hepburn

A Marketer’s Inspiration

It’s a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world. And we are not gonna get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.
Steve Jobs

Marketing is not anyone’s job — it’s everyone’s job!
Jack Welch

Don’t let people tell you your ideas won’t work. If you’re passionate about an idea that’s stuck in your head, find a way to build it so you can prove to yourself that it doesn’t work.
Dennis Crowley

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you’re a leader.
John Quincy Adams

There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks, and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination, you can get there.
Darren Rowse

Less is more. Keeping it simple takes time and effort.
Jeff Bullas

When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.
Leo Burnett

The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.
Peter Drucker

Markets are conversations.
The Cluetrain Manifesto

Be stubborn on vision but flexible on details.
Jeff Bezos

Product Quotations

Marketing is what you do when your product is no good.
Edwin Land

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
Steve Jobs

Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.
David Ogilvy

Better marketing often trumps a better product. Invest in both.
Rand Fishkin

Amazing things will happen when you listen to the consumer.
Jonathan Midenhall

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.
Steve Jobs

Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.
David Ogilvy

Pricing Quotes for Marketers

Price is what you pay, value is what you get.
Warren Buffett

The moment you make a mistake in pricing, you’re eating into your reputation or your profits.
Katharine Paine

Perhaps the reason price is all your customers care about is because you haven’t given them anything else to care about.
Seth Godin

What I ‘charge’ today has nothing to do with yesterday or tomorrow. It has to do with ‘now’!
Carl Rogers

Physical Distribution Quotes

Amazon has well passed any expectations of its ability to change distribution and marketing.
Eric Schmidt

We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
Steve Jobs

Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants.
Jonathan Perelman

Seth Godin Quotes on Branding

If failure is not an option, then neither is success.

Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell.

It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back.

The key to success is to find a way to stand out – to be the purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins.

You have brilliance in you, your contribution is valuable, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do, and you must.

The person who fails the most wins.

Either you’re the creator, or you’re the audience. Either you’re waiting your turn, or you’re taking it.

Make something happen today, before you go home, before the end of the week.

Sell a story that some people want to believe. In fact, sell a story they already believe.

Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.

I’m officially letting go. I’m going to stop comparing everything to my all-time best, to your all-time best, to everyone’s all-time best.

As long as ‘opportunity’ means change, and as long as ‘change’ means pain, we will continue to miss our chances.

Marketing Quotes FAQs

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By Mike O’Halloran

Mike is the founder of Greeting Card Poet and an award-winning marketer. He has held executive marketing and general management roles with several companies, including The Learning Company and Magnetic Poetry.

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