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175 Marketing Quotes to Live By

June 13, 2018

Marketing is a profession like no other.

Mathematicians and scientists are all about data and research. A graphic designer or painter is wired for creativity.

Marketers, on the other hand, require the mindset for both.

As a marketer, there are plenty of spreadsheets and software tools to help with the data-driven side of your profession. But what about the creativity? You use analytics to manage budget spend, choose which channels to focus on, and track progress towards your goals. In the face of all those numbers, how do you think outside the box?

The best marketing comes from looking at that data, and finding creative solutions to overcome problems and reach your goals.

Unique solutions will excite you, your coworkers, and your customers. That enthusiasm will result in increased productivity and a better understanding of how to be happy for you, and increased sales from your customers. It’s a win-win!

It all comes down to ideas. We need to find inspiration to spark our creativity, and fan it into a flame.

These quotes will give you every kind of inspiration you need to become a marketer who thinks with both your head and your heart.

This list of inspirational quotes to live by includes:

Sometimes, we forget why we chose the profession of marketing. Use these quotes to remind you. Let the joy of creativity spark your next campaign, and discover what makes your brand unique.

Even when faced with endless hours staring at the computer screen, creative marketing can be achieved!

Marketing Quotes

  1. “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller
  2. “Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find customers buying from them, not you.” – Mark Cuban
  3. “As marketers, we should be changing the mantra from always be closing to always be helping.” – Jonathan Lister
  4. “Stop selling. Start helping.” – ZigZiglarzig-ziglar-marketing-quote
  5. “If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing.” -Guy Kawasaki
  6. "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." – Warren Buffett
  7. “Whether B2B or B2C, I believe passionately that good marketing essentials are the same. We all are emotional beings looking for relevance, context and connection.” – Beth Comstock
  8. “Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” – Joe Chernov
  9. “Marketing momentum is about the everyday energy and relevance that you keep pulsing throughout your brand and organization.” – Sheryl Adkins-Green
  10. “Marketing exists to serve our consumers – one at a time.” –Trevor Edwards:
  11. "Creative without strategy is called 'art.' Creative with strategy is called 'advertising.' " – Jef I. Richards
  12. "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative." – David Ogilvy
  13. “Content is king, but marketing is queen, and runs the household.” Gary Vaynerchuk Tweet

Social Media Quotes

  1. “When you say it – it’s marketing. When they say it – it’s social proof.” – Andy Crestodina
  2. “Reputations can be built, attacked, and destroyed on social media. It's a huge game-changer - instantaneously emboldening adversaries and shortening the ride for any corporate or personal brand.” – Judy Smit
  3. “How different would people act if they couldn't show off on social media? Would they still do it?” – Donna Lynn Hope
  4. “It’s important to think of every customer as an online celebrity with followers, friends, & above all, influence.” – Dave Kerpen
  5. “Social media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide you.” – Matt Goulart
  6. “The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people.” – Jon Ronson
  7. “From the store windows, the store touch-points, the website, social media, or a magazine, it has to be one pure customer experience, not just to gain market share but to gain mindshare. “ – Angela Ahrendts
  8. “Social media was designed to SHARE what you’re doing and who you are, not BE what you’re doing and be who you are.” – Richie Norton
  9. “Social media is the ultimate equalizer. It gives a voice and a platform to anyone willing to engage.” – Amy Jo Martin
  10. “Social media is an ingredient, not an entree.” – Jay Baer
  11. “Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the myriad of other services resonate with the basic human urge to be social. The tools have changed, but human behaviour remains consistent.” – Alfred Hermida
  12. “Sharing is the essence of social media.” – Zoe Suggsocial-media-quotes
  13. “The power of social media is it forces necessary change.” – Erik Qualman
  14. “Social marketing eliminates the middlemen, providing brands the unique opportunity to have a direct relationship with their customers.” – Bryan Weiner
  15. “In today's age, writing a brand's name on social media without its handle or hashtag is like misspelling or writing its name with lower case.” – Jerry Oche
  16. “If your prospect like your product, they'll tell 10 people. If they don't, they'll tell 1,000.” – Timi Nadela
  17. “Too many brands treat social media as a one way, broadcast channel, rather than a two-way dialogue through which emotional storytelling can be transferred.” – Simon Mainwaring
  18. “Our head of social media is the customer.” – McDonald’s
  19. “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” – Brandon Sanderson
  20. “The whole point of social media is continuity and continual engagement.” – Clara Shih
  21. “Social Media can provide a conversational extension to a B2B company’s nurturing programs. Social Media gives us the opportunity to humanize our communications and make our companies more approachable.” – Ardath Albee
  22. “You cannot sell a man who isn’t listening; word of mouth is the best medium of all, and dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance.” – Bill Bernbach
  23. “Social media allows us to behave in ways that we are hardwired for in the first place - as humans. We can get frank recommendations from other humans instead of from faceless companies.” – Francois Gossieaux
  24. “In the age of social media, there is no such thing as "just an ordinary human being." Every time you post in social media, you harness the power to speak across time, place, and race. And that makes you extraordinary.” – Psyche Roxas-Mendoza
  25. “In this day and age, the digital age, you can forget about a resume; you are what your social media says about you.” – Germany Kent
  26. “Hitting "like" on a social media platform is the modern day version of clapping at the end of a performance.” – J.R. Rim
  27. “I am pain-stricken to say, that today’s so-called modern humans are all like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiment. Pavlov used a bell to manipulate the mind of his dogs, and today, social media platforms are using people’s own beloved smartphones to manipulate them.” – Abhijit Naskar
  28. “You are what you share.” – Charles W. Leadbeater
  29. “Don’t use social media to impress people; use it to impact people.” – Dave Willis
  30. “Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

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    Storytelling Quotes

  31. “At its very core, marketing is storytelling. The best advertising campaigns take us on an emotional journey – appealing to our wants, needs and desires – while at the same time telling us about a product or service.” – Melinda Partin
  32. “Inside each of us is a natural-born storyteller, waiting to be released.” – Robin Moore, author
  33. “Shakespeare is repeated around the world in different languages, just because it's good storytelling.” – Cary Fukunaga
  34. "The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions." – Michael Margolis
  35. “You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything.” – Beth Comstock
  36. “Tell a story. Make it true. Make it compelling. And make it relevant.” ― Rand Fishkinrand-fishkin-storytelling-quote
  37. “Listening is the secret to discover great stories.” – Fyrefly London
  38. “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin
  39. “I realized the importance of having a story today is what really separates companies. People don’t just wear our shoes, they tell our story.” — Blake Mycoskie, CEO, Tom’s Shoes
  40. “Storytelling is the game. It's what we all do. It's why Nike is Nike, it's why Apple is Apple, it's why Walt Disney built Disney World and it's why Vince McMahon makes a billion dollars.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
  41. “Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world.” – Robert McKee
  42. “The history of storytelling isn't one of simply entertaining the masses but of also advising, instructing, challenging the status quo.” – Therese Fowler
  43. “Over the years I have become convinced that we learn best–and change–from hearing stories that strike a chord within us…Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.” – John Kotter
  44. “Platforms - they come and go, but storytelling is forever.” – Michelle Phan
  45. “For thousands of years, humans have used the art of storytelling to motivate and persuade.” – Kristen Soltis Andersonstorytelling-quote
  46. “One thing hasn’t changed much in thousands of years…there’s still not better way to stir emotions that a good story.” – Boxer Creative, UK
  47. “There are two ways to share knowledge. You can push information out. You can pull them in with a story.” – Unknown
  48. “The most powerful person in the world is the story teller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.” – Steve Jobs
  49. “To be a person is to have a story to tell.” – Isak Dinesen
  50. “You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.” – Margaret Atwood
  51. “For me, the drive is storytelling. To be a part of an art that tells a story and to be a catalyst, a color in that, is very exciting.” – Alden Ehrenreich
  52. Writing is more about imagination than anything else. I fell in love with words. I fell in love with storytelling. Pat Conroy
  53. “Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” Robert McAfee Brown

    Creativity Quotes

  54. “Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
  55. “The most talented, thought-provoking, game-changing people are never normal.” – Richard Branson
  56. “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” Franklin D. Rooseveltcreativity-quote-fdr
  57. “Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” – William Pollard
  58. “The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” — Henry David Thoreau
  59. ”Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.” — Erich Fromm
  60. “Your billion-dollar ideas don't show up in the middle of dramatic distraction. They show up when you have the business and personal discipline to make space for your creative mind to flourish.” – Robin S. Sharma
  61. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
  62. “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” – Sylvia Plathcreativity-quote
  63. “When you can do a common thing in an uncommon way; you will command the attention of the world.” – George Washington Carver
  64. “When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.” – Linda Naiman
  65. “Over time, naturally, you lose your innocence from gaining knowledge. You can't be innocent forever, but there's something in innocence you need to regain to be creative.” – Albert Hammond, Jr.
  66. “Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.” – Stephen Covey
  67. “It's impossible to explain creativity. It's like asking a bird, 'How do you fly?' You just do.” – Eric Jerome Dickey
  68. “It’s no accident that AHA and HAHA are spelled almost the same way.” – Mitch Ditkoff
  69. “Your soul is infinitely creative. It is alive and expansive in nature. It is curious and playful, changing with the tides of time.” – Debbie Ford
  70. “The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.” – John Cleese
  71. “For your own self-respect and sanity, your creative freedom, you have to be careful that you don't rely too much on other people's opinions of what you do because it can stunt and inhibit you.” – Luke Evans
  72. “Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.” –Dee Hock
  73. “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” – Carl Jung
  74. “All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.” — Albert Camusinspirational-quotes
  75. “Creative experimentation propels our culture forward. That our stories of innovation tend to glorify the breakthroughs and edit out all the experimental mistakes doesn't mean that mistakes play a trivial role. As any artist or scientist knows, without some protected, even sacred space for mistakes, innovation would cease.” – Evgeny Morozov
  76. “Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been.” – Alan Alda
  77. “Creativity is the answer. I always prefer the creative solution to an expensive solution.” – Keenen Ivory Wayans
  78. “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter F. Drucker
  79. “I'm a freestyle creative entrepreneur. Not a businessman. I like to create ventures in which creativity stands at the centre.” – Lapo Elkann
  80. “Fear of the unknown is a great creative partner.” – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
  81. “You can be creative in anything - in math, science, engineering, philosophy - as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance.” – Ken Robinson

    Content Quotes

  82. “One of the main aims of content marketing, is to help people before they actually purchase something from you.” – Neil Patel
  83. “Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” – Andrew Davis
  84. “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” – Leo Burnett Tweet
  85. “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
  86. “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
  87. “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” – Henry David Thoreau
  88. “If I waited for perfection…I would never write a word.” – Margaret Atwoodcontent-quote
  89. “You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free.” – David Meerman Scott
  90. “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
  91. “I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.” – Erica Jong
  92. “The stronger the dialog, the stronger the brand; the weaker the dialog, the weaker the brand.” – Larry Webber
  93. “The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.” – Robert Benchley
  94. “Quality content means content that is packed with clear utility and is brimming with inspiration, and it has relentless empathy for the audience.” – Ann Handley
  95. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” – Elmore Leonard
  96. “Style means the right word. The rest matters little.” – Jules Renardwriting-quote
  97. “Individual storytelling is incredibly powerful. We as journalists know intuitively what scientists of the brain are discovering through brain scans, which is that emotional stories tend to open the portals, and that once there's a connection made, people are more open to rational arguments.” – Nicholas Kristof
  98. “Half my life is an act of revision.” – John Irving

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    Branding Quotes

  99. “Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.” – Sir Richard Branson
  100. “A brand is simply trust.” – Steve Jobs
  101. “A brand trying to be all things to all people = ‘blanding’.” – Simon Manchipp
  102. “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin
  103. “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” – Walter Landorbranding-quote
  104. “A brand that captures your mind gains behavior. A brand that captures your heart gains commitment.” – Scott Talgo
  105. “Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.” – David Ogilvy
  106. “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos
  107. “A brand is a reason to choose.” – Cheryl Burgess
  108. “Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity.” – Marty Neumeier
  109. “Brand is not a product, that's for sure; it's not one item. It's an idea, it's a theory, it's a meaning, it's how you carry yourself. It's aspirational, it's inspirational.” – Kevin Plank
  110. “Too many companies want their brands to reflect some idealized, perfected image of themselves. As a consequence, their brands acquire no texture, no character and no public trust. – Richard Branson
  111. “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic.” – Seth Godin
  112. “When people use your brand name as a verb, that is remarkable.” – Meg Whitman
  113. “If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.” – David Brier
  114. “The strength of brand loyalty begins with how your product makes people feel.” – Jay Samit
  115. “Branding is simply a more efficient way to sell things.” – Al Ries
  116. “Every great brand is like a great story.” – Kevin Plank
  117. “The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability.” – Simon Mainwaring
  118. “Build a lifestyle around your brand, and the audience will follow.” – Eva Chen
  119. “Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. And vice-versa.” – Jay Baer
  120. “Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.” – Elon Musk
  121. “Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.” ― Seth Godinseth-godin-quote
  122. “Ensure your employees understand what your brand stands for so they can be your first line of word-of-mouth advertising.” – Simon Mainwaring
  123. “A brand is a voice and a product is a souvenir.” – Lisa Gansky
  124. “Transforming a brand into a socially responsible leader doesn't happen overnight by simply writing new marketing and advertising strategies. It takes effort to identify a vision that your customers will find credible and aligned with their values.” – Simon Mainwaring
  125. “Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business.” – Warren Buffett
  126. “In a marketplace where it's so easy to produce products, where your competitors can essentially match you on the product itself, you need to have something else. You need to have an added value, and that added value is the identity, the idea behind your brand.” – Naomi Klein
  127. “An authentic and honest brand narrative is fundamental today; otherwise, you will simply be edited out.” – Marco Bizzarri
  128. “Branding adds spirit and a soul to what would otherwise be a robotic, automated, generic price-value proposition. If branding is ultimately about the creation of human meaning, it follows logically that it is the humans who must ultimately provide it.” – David A. Aaker

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    Teamwork Quotes

  129. “A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others.” – Norman Shidle
  130. "If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." --Henry Ford
  131. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ―Stephen R. Covey
  132. “We all have goals: We want to matter. We want to be important. We want to have freedom and power to pursue our creative work. We want respect from our peers and recognition for our accomplishments. Not out of vanity or selfishness, but of an earnest desire to fulfill our personal potential.” – Ryan Holiday
  133. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” ― Phil Jackson
  134. “It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like they've been listened to, they won't really get on board.” ― Patrick Lencioni
  135. “Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” ― Virginia Burdenteamwork-quote
  136. “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” – Amy Poehler
  137. “The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it's to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they're valued.” – Ken Robinson
  138. “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” – Henry Ford
  139. “A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle.” – Japanese Proverb
  140. “The way a team plays as whole determines it’s success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.” – George Herman
  141. “The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team.” – Lewis B. Ergenquotes-about-teamwork
  142. “You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.” – Jim Stovall

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    Motivation Quotes

  143. “If plan “A” fails – remember you have 25 letters left.” Chris Guillebeauof
  144. “People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.” ―Brian Eno
  145. “Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence.” ― Lisa M. Amos
  146. “Leverage the strength that you have: that no one else can be you.” – Todd Wheatlandquotes-to-live-by
  147. “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” – Thomas Jefferson
  148. “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” – J. K. Rowling
  149. “A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.” – Denis Waitley
  150. “Our job is to make change. Our job is to connect people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they would like to go. Every time we waste that opportunity, every sentence that doesn’t do enough to advance the cause, is a waste.” ― Seth Godin
  151. “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie
  152. “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“
  153. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.” – Mary Tyler Moore
  154. “The true measure of success is how many times you can bounce back from failure.” – Stephen Richards
  155. “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” ― Sun Tzu
  156. “I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.” – Oprah Winfrey
  157. “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” – Steve Martin
  158. “You never become a howling success just by howling.” – Bob Harrington
  159. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; It’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand
  160. “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” – Ken Robinson
  161. “If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission.” – Anonymousmotivational-quote
  162. “No one invites you to the top - you have to claw your way up. When you get there, you will sit with the others who were also uninvited - giggling.” – Staness Jonekos
  163. “Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you.” – George Whitefield

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