Many great people have said many great things about marketing over the years, so we decided to gather up 54 of our favorite quotes in this list.Marketing is about storytelling and conversation – how will these important thoughts affect your story, and the stories you tell? 

Many of the most powerful voices in marketing are gathered here, broken down into 4 categories; Management, Inspiration, Creativity, and Content.

Management

54. “You have brilliance in you, your contribution is valuable, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do, and you must.” – Seth Godin

53. “A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb

52. “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the park. Aim for the company of immortals.” – David Ogilvy

51. “Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “build it, nurture it, engage them and they may come and stay.” – Seth Godin

50. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

49. “We’re all learning here; the best listeners will end up the smartest.” – Josh Bernoff

48. “Make your team feel respected, empowered and genuinely excited about the company’s mission.”  –Tim Westergren, Pandora Founder

 

Inspiration

47. “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.”  –Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO

46. “You can’t be everything to everyone but you can be something to someone.”   Drew Davis, Brandscaping

45. “If you build it…you may still need Google AdWords.” Jennifer Mesenbrink, EditorThink

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

43. “Going viral is not an outcome; it’s a happening. Sometimes it happens; sometimes it doesn’t. Just remember, fans are vanity and sales are sanity.” – Lori Taylor

42. “No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long-term if you don’t have a sufficiently good product.” –Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator and co-founder of Loopt

41. “The strategy is to first know what you don’t know, the tactic is to grind, and the value is to remember: there are plenty of places to innovate.” –David Friedberg, founder of Weatherbill

40. “Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.” –Anthony Volodkin, founder, Hype Machine

39. “If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”–Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors

38. “If you’re co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks you might not want to do… If you don’t do your chores, the company won’t succeed… No task is too menial.” – Elon Musk

37. “In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.” – Seth Godin

36. “Remember to listen. Proactive listening is by far the most underused online marketing tactic.”  – Jason Falls, CafePress

35. “Invest in phenomenal content.”  – Adam Kleinberg, Traction

34. “Remember that there’s a person on the other side, who has a life full of commitments, stresses, activities and deadlines.They are not thinking about your brand 24/7, despite the fact that we’d love them to. So we have to insert ourselves into the conversation and add value to their lives…their complete lives not just the part that affects the brand. Jim Joseph,Cohn & Wolfe

33. “The best way to build a brand is to pay attention to customer needs, create better experiences, and then let the customer say how great those experiences are.” – Brian Clark, Copyblogger

32. “Marketing First; Product Second.” – Rand Fishkin

31. “The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.” ― Eric Ries

30. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

29. “Good marketers see consumers as complete human beings with all the dimensions real people have.” – Jonah Sachs

28. “The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife.” – David Ogilvy

27. “Instead of using technology to automate processes, think about using technology to enhance human interaction.” – Tony Zambito

26. “If you get bored with social media, it’s because you are trying to get more value than you create.” – Fast Company Staff

25. “Successful companies in social media function more like entertainment companies, publishers, or party planners than as traditional advertisers.” – Erik Qualman

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

 

Creativity

23. “Nothing begets creativity like constraints.” Christopher Mims

22. “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein

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

20. “The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.”  – Tom Fishburne 

Content

19. “Content marketing is more than a buzzword. It is the hottest trend in marketing because it is the biggest gap between what buyers want and brands produce.”  Michael Brenner, NewsCred

18. “Marketing is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content Marketing is showing the world you are one.” Robert Rose, Content Marketing Institute

17. “Content is the reason search began in the first place.” – Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing

16. “Content is anything that adds value to the reader’s life.” -Avinash Kaushik, Google

15. “Your top of the funnel content must be intellectually divorced from your product but emotionally wed to it.”- Joe Chernov, Hubspot

14. “Social media creates communities, not markets.” Don Schultz

13. “Not viewing your email marketing as content is a mistake.”  Chris Baggott

12. “On average, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline copy, but only 2 out 10 will read the rest.” Brian Clark, Copyblogger

11. “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic.” – Seth Godin

10. “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell.” – Seth godin

9. “It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back.” – Seth Godin

8. “Build out your company story and team pages. These days, consumers want to connect and support not just a product, but the company and mission behind it.” – Joanna Lord BigDoor

7. “Good content and good stories should supersede other considerations.” – Shane Snow

6. “Blog consistently. [. . .] Make your content useful, high-value, and sharable.” – Neil Patel

5. “You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything.” – Beth Comstock

4. “If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.” – Jay Baer

3. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.” – Benjamin Franklin

2. “Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” – Andrew Davis

“1. Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points.” – Jonah Sachs

 

 

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