What more suitable way to open an article about quotes than with a quote? As Wilson Mizner once said, “When you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research”.

So, we present you with 127 marketing quotes to ‘steal’ inspiration from – spoken by top marketers and thinkers for those aspiring to become ones.

Hopefully, these marketing-related words of wisdom will transform the way you think about marketing, advertising, branding, SEO, lead generation, content creation, storytelling, social media, creativity, innovation, and more.

And, who knows, some of these marketing quotes may help you become a better digital marketer and entrepreneur, and maybe (just maybe) even a better person.

General Marketing Quotes

1. “Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” – Milan Kundera 

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

3. “The best marketing strategy ever: CARE.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

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

5. “Ignoring online marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone.” – Anonymous

6. “We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.” – Craig Davis

7. “Don’t find customers for your product. Find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin

8. “Sell the problem you solve. Not the product you make.” – Unknown 

9. “People spend money when and where they feel good.” – Walt Disney

10. “Marketing wants ‘Mr. Right’ but Sales but wants ‘Mr. Right Now’.” – Unknown

11. “Make your marketing so useful people would pay you for it.” – Jay Baer 

12. “Marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed.” – Dan Zarrella

13. “Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.” – Brian Chesky

14. “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” – David Packard 

15. “You can’t just place a few ‘Buy’ buttons on your website and expect your visitors to buy.” – Neil Patel

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

17. “Personally, I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms.” – Dale Carnegie

18. “If you can’t explain it to a 6-year old, you don’t know it yourself.” – Albert Einstein

19. “The purest treasure mortal times can afford is a spotless reputation.” – William Shakespeare

20. “Master the topic, the message, and the delivery.” – Steve Jobs

Content Marketing Quotes

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

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

23. “Content is king.” – Bill Gates 

24. “Content is fire, social media is gasoline.” – Jay Baer 

25. “Content is king but engagement is queen, and the lady rules the house!” – Mari Smith

26. “Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants.” – Jonathan Perelman, Buzzfeed

27. “Content is not king, but a president elected by the votes of those whom it aims to rule.” – Raheel Forooq

28. “Content is the key, because it’s how a website creates an online experience.” – Adam Audette

29. “If your content isn’t driving conversation, you’re doing it wrong.” – Dan Roth

30. “Content is anything that adds value to the reader’s life.” – Avinash Kaushik

31. “Good content isn’t about good storytelling. It’s about telling a true story well.” – Ann Handley

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

33. “Content is the atomic particle of all digital marketing.” – Rebecca Lieb

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

35. “Content marketing is like a first date. If you only talk about yourself, there won’t be a second one.” – David Beebe 

36. “Content is the reason search began in the first place.” – Lee Odden

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

38. “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 

39. “Content should ask people to do something and reward them for it.” – Lee Odden

40. “Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it.” – Michael Brenner

41. “Content marketing is the only marketing left.” – Seth Godin

42. “What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.” – David Ogilvy

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

44. “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” – David Ogilvy

45. “Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” – Jon Buscall

46. “Content marketing represents the gap between what brands produce and what consumers actually want.” – Michael Brenner

47. “Content Marketing is no longer a numbers game. It’s a game of relevance.” – Jason Miller

48. “Revenue is king. Tying your content to revenue and lead gen is critical to success.” – Elizabeth Clor

Storytelling Quotes

49. “Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin 

50. “We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.” – Jimmy Neil Smith

51. “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

52. “The key is, no matter what story you tell, make your buyer the hero.” – Chris Brogan

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

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

55. “Make your customer the hero of your stories.” – Ann Handley

56. “When people put their kids to sleep, nobody tells bedtime facts.” – Jonah Berger

SEO Quotes

57. “Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.” – Wendy Piersall

58. “Google will know that you are hungry for sushi before you do.” – Ben Kunz

59. “Don’t optimize for conversions, optimize for revenue.” – Neil Patel

60. “SEO is not something you do anymore. It’s what happens when you do everything else right.” – Chad Pollitt

61. “In 2004, good SEO made you remarkable on the web. In 2014, good SEO is a result of being remarkable on the web.” – Rand Fishkin

62. “SEO is like a resume, you polish it so you have your best foot forward.” – Matt Cutts

63. “Don’t build links. Build relationships.” – Rand Fishkin

Creativity Quotes

 

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

65. “To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” – George Kneller

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

67. “Creativity may well be the last legal unfair competitive advantage we can take to run over the competition.” – Dave Trott

68. “Creativity without strategy is called art, creativity with strategy is called advertising.” – Jef L. Richards

68. “Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people” – Leo Burnett

69. “An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin Land

Social Media Marketing Quotes

70. “Social media is about sociology and psychology more than technology” – Brian Solis

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

72. “Sell-sell-sell sales methods simply do not work on social media.” – Kim Garst

73. “The best way to engage honestly with the marketplace via Twitter is to never use the words ‘engage,’ ‘honestly’ or ‘marketplace.’” – Jeffrey Zeldman

74. “Put your energy into making things that are likeable, not some douchey social media strategy.” – Matthew Inman

75. “People share, read and generally engage more with any type of content when it’s surfaced through friends and people they know and trust.” – Malorie Lucich

76. “Social media allows big companies to act small again.” – Jay Baer 

77. “On social networks be helpful 85 percent of the time by sharing and engaging, 10 percent publish original content and less than 5 percent talk about what your organization does.” – David Meerman Scott

78. “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

79. “Getting the like is easy. It’s a light action. Anything else requires trust.” – Jon Loomer

80. “No matter what, the very first piece of social media real estate I’d start with is a blog.” – Chris Brogan

81. “Just as you don’t need to be on every single TV channel, I don’t believe a brand needs to be on every single social media in one big way.” – Shiv Singh

82. “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” – Jeff Bezos

83. “Social media is a contact sport.” – Margaret Molloy

Innovation Quotes

84. “If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything innovative.” – Woody Allen

85. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

86. “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

87. “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” – General George Patton

88. “Holding back technology to preserve broken business models is like allowing blacksmiths to veto the internal combustion engine in order to protect their horseshoes.” – Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

89. People shop and learn in a whole new way compared to just a few years ago, so marketers need to adapt or risk extinction.” – Brian Halligan

90. “Today it’s important to be present, be relevant and add value.” – Nick Besbeas

91. “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” – Albert Einstein

92. “Pro tip: Watch political campaigns. That’s where innovation is happening in content marketing.” – Devon Hopkins

Advertising Quotes

93. “The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” – Thomas Jefferson

94. “Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes, it’s an ad.” – Howard Gossage (real-life Mad Men inspiration)

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

96. “Never let ads write checks your website can’t cash.” – Avinash Kaushik

97. “Advertising brings in customers, but word-of-mouth brings in the best customers.” – Jonah Berger

98. “If great content is the hero, then banners are the villain.” – Michael Brenner

99. “An ad is finished only when you no longer can find a single element to remove.” – Robert Fleege

100. “Targeting millennials is no better than targeting snake people.” – Joel Windels

101. “In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal.” – Bill Bernbach

102. “Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.” – David Ogilvy

103. “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.” – Steuart Henderson Britt

104. “If dogs don’t like your dog food, the packaging doesn’t matter.” – Stephen Denny

Lead Generation Quotes

105. “Making your prospects feel like they have an exclusive membership in a club makes lead generation a positive customer experience.” – Eric Bower

106. “Lead generation is a fairly core activity to marketing.” – Chris Brogan

107. “Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” – Zig Zagler

108. “No matter what you do, don’t pass leads directly to the sales team.” – Jon Miller

109. “Content is the fuel for your lead generation efforts.” – Dayna Rothman

110. “We do a lot of one night stands in lead generation and not enough long term relationships.” – Mike King

111. “The lead generation process starts by finding out where your target market ‘lives’ on the web.” – Wayne Davis

112. “Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.” – Brian Tracy 

113. “You are out of business if you don’t have a prospect.” – Zig Zagler

114. “For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.” – Zig Ziglar

Branding Marketing Quotes

115. “Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time.” – Elon Musk

116. “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is—it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook

117. “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos

118. “If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” – Howard Schultz 

119. “Your brand is not what you sell.” – John Iwata

120. “Branded content is created for a company. A content brand is created for a valuable company.” – Drew Davis

121. “Your culture is your brand.” – Tony Hsieh

Inspirational Quotes

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

123. “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

124. “Don’t settle. Don’t finish crappy books. If you don’t like the menu, leave the restaurant. If you’re not on the right path, get off it.” – Chris Brogan

125. “Do or do not; there is no try.” – Yoda

126. “Failure is an option.” – Matthew Schwartz

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

As the phrase “marketing” has recently become notorious for invoking all kinds of distrustful associations among consumers, these marketing quotes are intended not only to inspire but to educate as well. 

This is just a small reminder to the world that the primary purpose of marketing isn’t to swindle or deceive – its sole purpose should be to help businesses tell their brand’s story and build a meaningful relationship with their customers.

In case our selection of marketing quotes has inspired you to start transforming your online business and take it to the next level, then you should definitely consider using online quizzes in your marketing strategy, as they are the perfect combination of creativity and innovation necessary to succeed in the modern business world.