172 Marketing Quotes to Boost Your Business!

In this article, you will discover 172 marketing quotes from specialists in the field to boost your business.

Marketing is an area that has been radically altered by digitalization. Consumer behavior has completely changed, forcing companies to adapt and constantly rethink their marketing strategies in order to be successful. We have thus witnessed the emergence of new approaches. Today, for example, you hear about web marketing, digital marketing, content marketing, inbound marketing, growth hacking, social media marketing, permission marketing, brand marketing, storytelling, copywriting, etc. The general tendency of these new strategies is to focus, among other things, on customer satisfaction, product value and digital consumer data.

In this article, I have put together quotes about marketing and passages from books from the top marketers. I have classified them into three main themes of the field of marketing: the customer, the product/market, and the marketing techniques/strategies. Entrepreneurs, marketing teams, marketing trainers, salespeople will be able to draw from these quotes insights and examples and use them as a source of inspiration and avenues for progress.

1. The Customer

Quotes on the Importance of Focusing on the Customer and Placing Him/Her at the Center of the Marketing Process

• “The # 1 factor that has contributed to our success is, by far, this compulsive obsession we have with focusing on the customer, rather than the competition.” – Jeff Bezos
• “Marketing and sales can no longer be product oriented, but customer oriented.” – Selma Païva
• “Your business success is not a sprint! It’s a marathon, a long-term race; to win it, you have to have a marketing strategy that will make your customers into fans.” – Sebastien Night
• “Your website is not the center of your universe, your Facebook page is not the center of your universe, your mobile application is not the center of your universe. The customer is the center of your universe.” – Bruce Ernst
• “To be the best in the eyes of your customer, you have to know your customer, their way of thinking, their way of comparing the offers made to them.” – Sebastien Night
• “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos
• “The dollar bill that the customer receives from the tellers at four different banks is the same. What’s different are the tellers.” – Marcus Stanley
• “For me, the most important character is the customer. Everything we do is for him.” – Louis V. Gerstner
• “There is only one boss: the customer. He can fire all the staff, from the manager to the employee, simply by spending his money elsewhere.” – Sam Walton

Marketing Quotes to Attract the Customer

• “One of the best ways to attract potential customers on the Internet is to provide them with free information to help them solve a problem or achieve a goal related to your product.” – Sebastien Night
• “In the recent past, the customer had to be found (trade fair, event, direct marketing, telephone sales, advertising, etc.); he must now find you (website, blog, social networks, organic SEO, etc.). ” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Marketing is a struggle to get people’s attention.” – Seth Godin
• “If you make a great first impression on a customer, the effect of that first impression will persist to the point of becoming irrational […]. The brain generalizes its positive appreciation from the first moment to other aspects.” – Sebastien Night
• “The more omnipresent you are in your prospect’s mind, the closer the relationship you will create with him.” – Sebastien Night
• “Once convinced of the quality of your product or service, a customer is much more likely to buy a second product than someone who discovers you for the first time. This is how you can create fans, who buy your new offers over and over again.” – Sebastien Night
• “Marketing is the enthusiasm transferred to the customer.” – Gregory Ciotti
• “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
• “Getting traffic is certainly not an end in itself. Whether you get 10,000 or 100,000 visitors won’t make much of a difference to your bottom line if you don’t know how to convert your visits into leads.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Marketing is a war of perceptions, not of products.” – Al Ries

Marketing Quotes to Better listen and Meet the Needs of Customers

• “The solution to a marketing problem is never overbearing promises. Often, our product doesn’t sell because we haven’t identified a real need.” – Stan Leloup
• “The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not said.” – Peter Drucker
• “People care more about their needs than our brands.” – Selma Païva
• “Think like a customer.” – Paul Gillin
• “You don’t find customers for your products. You find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin
• “The consumer is not a moron, she’s your wife.” – David Ogilvy
• “Know what your customers want most and what your business does best. Focus on where those two meet.” – Kevin Stirtz
• “The goal of sales is to satisfy a customer need, that of marketing is to understand that need.” – Philip Kotler
• “The buyer’s journey is nothing more than a series of questions that must be answered.” – Michael Brenner
• “Good marketing requires you to give your customers rational reasons for their emotional buying decisions.” – Jay Abraham
• “When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.” – Meredith Hill
• “By listening, marketing will re-learn how to talk.” – Doc Searls & David Weinberger
• “In the 1980s, we looked for a customer in every individual. Today, we need to find the individual in every customer.” – Boris Durisin
• “By posting content that lets people see that you understand their problems and know how to solve them, you gain credibility.” – Ardath Albee
• “Your marketing cannot be a monologue where you shout louder and louder into your megaphone to make yourself heard. For your marketing to be benevolent, you have to invite dialogue, by creating a structured communication space.” – Sebastien Night

Marketing Quotes on the Art of Persuading and Amplifying Your Impact on Your Client

• “People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them, they often believe what their friends tell them, they always believe what they tell themselves.” – Seth Godin
• “The salesman who appeals to the emotions or feelings of his customers will make 10 sales whereas the salesman who appeals merely to the reason of his customers will only make one.” – Napoleon Hill
• “You can convince others with your own reasons, but you can only persuade them with theirs.” – Alphonse Daudet
• “People get seduced by personalities and ideas much quicker than by goods. It is for this reason that a salesperson who is a good director makes sales where other salespeople cannot.” – Napoleon Hill
• “Man is ready for anything as long as it is told to him in mystery; whoever wants to be believed must whisper.” – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
• “The best way to persuade is not to persuade.” – Lautréamont
• “If you believe in your idea, then sell it. Defend your point as best as you can and get what you came for. Your contacts will thank you for it, because deep down we all want to be convinced.” – Seth Godin
• “A good salesperson […] does not seek to sell his prospect a product that he himself would not buy if he were in the position of the potential buyer.” – Napoleon Hill

Marketing Quotes on Customer Satisfaction and the Quality of Customer Relationships

• “The best advertising is a satisfied customer.” – Bill Gates
• “Your marketing is a dialogue, not a monologue. A customer who feels heard is more likely to be a loyal buyer.” – Sebastien Night
• “A satisfied customer is a very good vector of communication. […] Establishing trust with your customers will make it possible to keep them in the long term, but also, and above all, to attract new ones.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Beyond the simple sale of a product or a service, what is important is the ability of a brand to create real added value in the quality of its relationships with its leads and customers.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “When you are trying to make an important decision, and you are divided, ask yourself: if the customer was there, what would they say?” – Dharmesh Shah
• “For a customer, the first impression is always the right one, especially if it is bad.” – Michaël Aguilar
• ”Putting oneself in the client’s shoes is a principle that governs the whole process of designing the economic model. It must guide and motivate all our choices: value proposition, distribution channels, client relationship, revenue stream.” – Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur

2. The Product and the Market

Quotes on Niche Marketing and “Market Positioning” to Better Distinguish Oneself

Note: For a brand or a company, market positioning consists of differentiating itself and thus making its product easily identifiable in the minds of consumers.

• “Don’t make a product for everyone, because it will be a product for nobody.” – Seth Godin
• “It’s not important to be the best at what you do. It’s best to do what others don’t.” – Thomas Jefferson
• “Keep an eye on what your competition is doing, but don’t copy them.” – Arnaldo Hax
• “The best way to get immediate attention is to ask a question.” – Heinz Goldman
• “Positioning brings the logic of the brain and the emotion of the heart to the corporate body.” – Stéphane Truphème
• ”Instead of remaining in its traditional market and making incremental changes to its economic market, the company must seek to create an entirely new market space through fundamental differentiation.” – Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
• “In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.” – Seth Godin
• “Great marketing is the art of incorporating (not just adding) elements to a product or service that will prevent it from going unnoticed.” – Seth Godin
• “If there is a reason why you are different from everyone else, then say so. And if you are no different from everyone else, then become so. – John Carlton
• “A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference it can preserve.” – Michael Porter
• “More and more, mass marketing is turning into niche marketing.” – Chris Anderson
• “Your premium brand better deliver something special, otherwise it won’t get the business…” – Warren Buffet
• “What makes you unique is your success.” – William Arruda
• “Think different.” – Steve Jobs

Marketing Quotes Speaking to the Value of One’s Product/Service

• ”Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” – Warren Buffet
• “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” – Theodore Levitt
• “My best ad is a good product.” – Alan Meyer
• “A product’s true value lies not in what it is, but in what it can offer you. What matters is not the price of the bulb, it is the price of the light.” – Thomas Edison
• “Before giving your price, you must justify the value.” – Jeff Walker
• “There is no longer a market for products that everyone likes a little bit. There are only markets for products that someone loves.” – Boris Durisin
• “I prefer to give value, before asking for anything in return. […] But you have to strategically choose what you give the prospect to increase the desire to buy.” – Sebastien Night
• “Make what you can sell, rather than trying to sell what you can make.” – Peter Drucker
• “There is only one winning strategy: it is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.” – Philip Kotler
• “It’s important that we think about the type of marketing we’re creating. Is it really useful to our customers? Will they thank us for it?” – Ann Handley
• “Today, smart marketers no longer sell products, they sell a global package of services around the product.” – Philip Kotler
• “It is now through supply that we create demand.” – Gabriel Szapiro
• “Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.” – Guccio Gucci
• “It is no longer enough to be ‘better than’ to be successful; you have to be the best!” – Sebastien Night
• “The more you help people get what they want, the more successful you become.” – Zig Ziglar

Marketing Quotes for Successful Sales

• “Selling can no longer be equated with annoying.” – Selma Païva
• “The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” – Tom Fishburne
• “The person who has a good idea but does not know how to sell it is no more advanced than the person who has no ideas.” – Abraham Lincoln
• “The good salesman is a pure product of genetics: the result of a cross between a gold digger, a calculator, a clown, a stethoscope, a seducer and a punching bag.” – Michaël Aguilar
• “Selling is above all about communicating, helping, persuading, serving others and respecting them.” – Napoleon Hill
• “Once the seller has in place the three prerequisites that are trust, interest and reason to buy, they have reached the point where the sale can be closed.” – Napoleon Hill
• “Most people are not influenced primarily by reason; they are first moved by emotion or feeling. The one who is not able to strongly stimulate his own emotions cannot attract others by acting on their emotional nature.” – Napoleon Hill
• “The consumer must know what to buy and why he is going to buy, within 15 seconds… Otherwise, you have lost the sale.” – Parisa Zander
• “When you talk about your products or services, talk about them in terms of solutions.” – Marc Delbreil
• “I learned how to sell, which means listening more than talking, knowing the product inside out, having a sense of humor and telling the truth.” – David Ogilvy
• “Being a great salesperson is, in general terms, showing a potential customer the real benefits of the product or service you are trying to skillfully sell them.” – Napoleon Hill
• “A man trying to sell a blind camel always praises its feet.” – Arab Proverb 

3. Marketing Techniques and Strategies

Marketing Quotes on Storytelling to Boost Sales

Note: Storytelling is a marketing method that consists of telling stories for the purposes of communication (getting their attention, building trust, creating desire, etc.).

• ”People don’t buy goods or services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” – Seth Godin
• “As surprising as it sounds, marketing starts long before you have anything to sell! You just need to have stories to tell, ideas to expose or concepts to validate in order to create a relationship and make that relationship grow over time.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Either you’re going to tell stories that spread, or you will become irrelevant.” – Seth Godin
• “Marketing is not your product, it’s the story you tell.” – Seth Godin
• “No matter what story you tell, your customer has to be the hero.” – Chris Brogan
• “Your journey tells a story. The story has a message. The message is your strength.” – Selma Païva
• “Make your customers the hero of your stories.” – Ann Handley
• “Marketing is a creative use of the truth.” – Philip Kotler

Quotes on Inbound Marketing to Attract Customers

Note: Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that aims to attract customers organically, spontaneously rather than seeking them out with advertising techniques.

• “Inbound Marketing is the art and the way of making yourself known to those who don’t know you.” – Cyril Bladier
• “The inbound Marketing approach is based on two pillars: people and technology.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “If you don’t want to be the best butcher in the neighborhood, don’t do inbound marketing.” – Gabriel Dabi-Schwebel
• “Inbound Marketing is a new marketing approach that aims to attract consumers by gaining their attention thanks in particular to the distribution of quality content: content that informs, educates, and even inspires.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Inbound is more of a philosophy than a technique.” – Cyril Bladier
• “Permission marketing uses the same basic premise as inbound marketing: traditional advertising techniques are intrusive. They often lead to the opposite effect of that sought: instead of interesting the consumer, they lead him to turn away and pay less and less attention to the messages delivered.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “It’s inbound that drives companies to innovate.” – Gabriel Szapiro
• “Inbound marketing is a machine for generating customers.” – Adrian Measures
• “In contrast to outbound marketing, which consists of sending “push” messages to prospects, inbound marketing consists of bringing customers to oneself (“pull”) by disseminating content that corresponds to their needs, by making themselves visible and accessible, and facilitating conversion.” – Stéphane Truphème

Quotes on Growth Hacking to Get Your Business Booming

Note: Growth hacking is a marketing activity which aims, through the implementation of various strategies, to massively accelerate the growth of a company – more often a start-up – in a short time and at a lower cost.

• “Growth hacking is the marriage of marketing and technology.” – Frédéric Canevet and Grégoire Gambatto
• “Growth hacking is often considered to be start-up marketing, in the sense that it is an ultra-modern, dynamic form of marketing that knows how to question itself and adapt to its environment.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “The growth hacker is the person whose sole purpose is the growth of the company. […] He is not just a “web marketer”. […] The growth hacker implements “hacks” or tactics which aim to increase greatly and very quickly the growth of the turnover of his company.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Growth hacking is to marketing what guerrilla warfare is to traditional war. It means having a maximum of results with a minimum of means, while using a simple and affordable arsenal.” – Frédéric Canevet and Grégoire Gambatto

Quotes on SEO in Web Marketing to Optimize Your Digital Presence

Note: In terms of web marketing, SEO includes all the marketing techniques that make a business more visible on the internet thanks to good positioning on search engines. We speak of SEM (Search Engine Marketing) when it is paid and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when it is not (organic).

• “A website without SEO is useless!” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Google is the new home page for a business.” – Jeremiah Owyang
• “Without a keen understanding of the mechanisms underlying SEO, you risk wasting time and drastically limiting the scope of your content creation efforts. So, always keep this objective in mind: position your key content in the first three Google search results or, failing that, in the first ten.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “It’s not the best content that wins. It’s the best-promoted content that wins.” – Andy Crestodina
• “Organic SEO should be the backbone of the visibility strategy.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Your brand is not what you say about it, it’s what Google says about it.” – Chris Anderson

Quotes on Brand Marketing to Build a Strong Brand and Market

Note: Brand marketing (or branding) is a form of marketing which implements actions with the aim of favorably developing a brand, making it memorable and recognizable in the minds of consumers.

• “The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner.” – Philip Kotler
• “A brand must seek to appropriate a word in the minds of consumers.” – Al Ries and Laura Ries
• “Your brand image is first of all an emotional construction. People react much more easily to emotion than to reason, but people like to rationalize their choice.” – Drayton Bird
• “A good name is an advertisement in itself.” – Claude C. Hopkins
• “Focus on creating the best brand possible. If you are good, people will notice it and opportunities will arise.” – Mark Cuban
• “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that explain the consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin
• “Mass advertising can help build a brand, but authenticity is what makes it last.” – Howard Schultz
• “Define what your brand stands for, its core values and tone of voice, then communicate it all in a consistent way.” – Simon Mainwaring
• “The opportunity to leave an impression in people’s minds is the essence of branding.” – Steve Jobs
• “Making and keeping promises is a great way to build a brand.” – Seth Godin
• “The strength of a brand lies in its determination to promote its own values and its own mission.” – Jean-Noel Kapferer
• “Build a lifestyle around your brand, and the audience will follow.” – Eva Chen

Quotes on Copywriting to Convince with the Power of Words Alone

Note: In marketing, copywriting means writing for advertising purposes, using the power of words to persuade. In short, it is the art of selling with words.

• “The four values of desire: practicing humor, creating intrigue, causing the unexpected, arousing seduction.” – Gabriel Szapiro
• “It is not enough to speak, but to speak true.” – William Shakespeare
• “Maybe grapes from one little 80-acre vineyard in France are really the best in the whole world, but I have always had a suspicion that 99% of it is in the telling and about 1% of it is in the drinking.” – Warren Buffet
• “Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.” – Leo Burnett
• “Words can be like x-rays. If used properly, they will go through anything.” – Aldous Huxley
• “The most powerful element in advertisement is the truth.” – Bill Bernbach
• “Most good copywriters fall into two categories: poets or killers. Poets see advertisement as an end. The killers see it as a means to an end. If you are both a killer and a poet, then you will get rich.” – David Ogilvy
• “We don’t stand a chance of advertising with features and benefits and with RAMs and with charts and comparisons. The only chance we have of communicating is with a feeling.” – Steve Jobs

Quotes on Content Marketing to Gain Visibility, Credibility and Authority

Note: Content marketing consists in creating and distributing quality content, with high added value, for marketing purposes (attracting consumers, converting them into customers, building loyalty, increasing sales, etc.)

• “Content is king.” – Bill Gates
• “Great content is the world’s best-selling tool.” – Marcus Sheridan
• “Content quality is so essential that it sometimes becomes even more important in influencing a consumer’s decision than the product or service that is actually sold!” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Marketing is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content Marketing is showing the world you are one.” – Robert Rose
• “Today, the role of marketing is to be present where buyers get information by delivering quality content, at the right time, in the right context.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Content marketing is really a first date. If you’re just talking about yourself, there won’t be a second date.” – David Beebe
• “Information is the only raw material that gains in value when it is shared. When you compile quality information in a format that is digestible and useful to your customers, you turn that information into wisdom. And you create a feeling of gratitude that inspires these people to become lifelong customers.” – Sebastien Night
• “Content marketing is no longer a numbers game. It’s a game of relevance.” – Jason Miller
• “The quality and relevance of content will determine performance.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Content is the atomic particle of all marketing.” – Rebecca Lieb
• “Quality web content has become the key to rebuilding a solid contract of trust with consumers and users.” – Stéphane Truphème

Quotes on Data Marketing to Better Target Needs

Note: Data marketing (or data-driven marketing) is a marketing strategy that consists of collecting and analyzing digital data from consumers in order to optimize the marketer’s job.

• “Marketing without data is driving with your eyes closed.” – Dan Zarella
• “It all comes down to how disciplined you are gathering your data, keeping your data cleansed, and making sure your data is in a format that can be easily translated into multiple systems. That’s the key to success.” – Henry Schuck
• “To get the right message to the right person at the right time, you first need to bring together the right data from the right database at the right time.” – John Caldwell
• “It is essential that salespeople learn to ‘decode’ the digital body language of their customers and understand their use of digital channels. […] By basing themselves on a perfect understanding of their interests, their needs and their real behaviors, they will then be able to offer the relevant messages that will help their clients to take action with confidence.” – Stéphane Truphème

Quotes on Marketing Automation in Web Marketing to Save Time and Improve Efficiency

Note: Marketing automation is a technological marketing tool, a software solution, implemented in digital marketing, which enables actions to be automated based on the behavior of individuals. It is used when these actions can no longer be done manually (emailing, segmentation, nurturing, scoring, ROI performance measure, etc.).

• “Technology allows us to regain the agility needed to respond to customers with the right message, at the right time and in the right context.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Without a doubt, the next ten years will be those of redesigned and deeply renewed smarter marketing, generating value for the company but also, and above all, for the digital customer.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “The simple consumer of yesterday has become an ‘augmented consumer’, having found in the digital world weapons to inform themselves and, at times, to unite in order to challenge brands that do not meet their aspirations.” – Stéphane Truphème

Quotes on Viral Marketing to Turn Customers into Ambassadors

Note: Viral marketing is a technique that promotes a product (or service) by disseminating a message that is deployed in the same way as a virus: the message is relayed from one individual to another and is based on a system of recommendations between consumers. For this word of mouth to be effective, the message conveyed must create a buzz.

• “Word of mouth or viral marketing starts with understanding what the customer wants to talk about.” – Emanuel Rosen
• “Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.” – Jay Baer
• “A brand is not what we tell consumers, it’s what consumers tell each other.” – Scott Cook
• “The best media is word of mouth.” – Brian Koslow
• “Companies that understand social media are those whose message says: I see you, I hear you, and I care about you.” – Trey Pennington
• “’Peer-to-peer’ recommendations influence Internet users who find the speech of a third party often more credible – or in any case more neutral – than that emanating from the brand itself.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Ordinary people spread good and bad brand information faster than marketers.” – Ray Johnson
• “Create and distribute remarkable and relevant content to naturally attract strangers and turn them into ambassadors for your business.” – Jerome D. Simon
• “To understand social media, look at it as the creation of a new public space.” – Danah Boyd

Bonus – Mistakes to Avoid for Successful Marketing in 6 Quotes

• “No need to pour money into scaling up messages or to appeal to a verbiage of article curation in order to come up with a good strategy for Inbound Marketing. […] Do not think that invading the web with redundant topics, a thousand times retweeted, will arouse the desire in your target audiences and get them to join you. The effect is often the opposite: boredom or rejection. Also, take the time to differentiate yourself!” – Gabriel Szapiro
• “There is no point in covering too many topics and straying from your true ‘core business’. If you do not stay focused on your strengths, you attract very high traffic, but your chances of qualifying leads are minimal.” – Stéphane Truphème
• “Stop Selling. Start helping.” – Zig Ziglar
• “Better to have a thousand real fans than tens of thousands who don’t really care about you.” – Seth Godin
• “Do not promise results. If you have to promise anything, stay within what you think is guaranteed. You will not be blamed for bringing more than what you promised; you will, however, be blamed for not providing what you promised.” – Auguste Detoeuf
• “Content marketing is not adding noise to noise on the web.” – Selma Païva

A very final quote on marketing to conclude this article:

• “I have two pieces of news for you, one good and one bad. The good news is that marketing takes an hour to learn. The bad news is that it takes a lifetime to master.” – Philip Kotler

What about you? Do you know of any other marketing quotes you want to share? If so, please let me know in the comments.