“Success is making those who believed in you look brilliant.”
This is one of my favorite quotes in regards to my job at HubSpot. It inspires and motivates my work and, no matter my mood, I find it to be an uplifting message to ponder and drive my performance. Not to mention, it’s a quote from (and often repeated by) one of our co-founders, Dharmesh Shah.
There is an endless number of quotes and phrases people use for inspiration at work, in their personal lives and relationships, and to drive community efforts. There are even industry-specific quotes — the marketing industry is no exception.
Why use marketing quotes?
Whether it’s a generic marketing quote to inspire your team, a content marketing quote to provoke discussion about one of your strategies, or an inspirational marketing quote to fuel your approach to a project, there’s a quote to help guide you and your team achieve your goals.
The abundance of marketing quotes include content marketing quotes, famous marketing quotes, branding marketing quotes, inspirational marketing quotes, storytelling marketing quotes, social media marketing quotes, and digital marketing quotes.
We’ve curated this list of our favorite ten quotes within each of these categories to inspire you. As a bonus, each section also includes at least one quote from a HubSpot employee who’s considered an expert in their field.
Let’s dive in.
The following marketing quotes are universal — meaning, no matter the type of marketing you do or the type of business you work for, they’re here to help guide you and your team towards success.
Content Marketing Quotes
The following quotes provide new ways for you and your team members to approach the creation, publication, and distribution of your content and ideas — no matter the products or services your company produces and sells.
Check out our Content Marketing Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide for Modern Marketers to learn more about content marketing for your business.
- “When it comes to content, the best marketers know that self-promotion is good!” — Kieran Flanagan, VP Marketing, HubSpot
- “What separates good content from great content is a willingness to take risks and push the envelope.” — Brian Halligan, CEO & Co-founder, HubSpot
- “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, CCO, MarketingProfs
- “Marketing is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content Marketing is showing the world you are one.” —Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, The Content Advisory
- “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, Founder & CEO, Storified Hospitality Group
- “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, INBOUND & Influencer Relations, HubSpot
- “Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” — Andrew Davis, Author & Keynote Speaker, Monumental Shift
- “Content marketing is the gap between what brands produce and what consumers actually want.” — Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insider Group
- “One of the best ways to sabotage your content is to not tie it to your goals. Know why you’re creating content.” — Ellen Gomes Sr. Content Marketing Manager, Glint Inc.
- “There are three objectives for content marketing: reach, engagement, conversion. Define key metrics for each.” — Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insider Group
Sometimes, you might want to lean on the words and experiences that a successful person you admire once said or described. Here are some famous quotes you can apply to your business’ marketing efforts to help you do just that.
Marketing Career Quotes
- “If you want to grow and you want to be successful, you’ve got to get rid of how you used to do things … what made you successful might be the demise of your business.” — David Chang, Chef, Entrepreneur & Founder, Majordomo Media
- “Execution and failure is a part of the process. You have to accept that.” — Morgan Debaun, CEO, Blavity
- “Long gone are the days where we have to ask for a seat at the table. I don’t want a seat, I want my own table. When you make your own table, you don’t have to do anything that’s out of alignment with the people you want to serve. — Tiffany Aliche, Founder, The Budgetnista
- “At the end of the day, you have to bring all of the work — the work that you’ve done that’s more in-depth, tighter, more brilliant than anybody else can bring. Because that’s the only way to ensure that you actually get the next shot, and the next chance.” — Bozoma Saint John, Entrepreneur & Author
- “Start before you’re ready. No idea is ever going to be 100% perfect, the timing is never going to be 100% right, I’m a big believer that if you jump in and get started, you’ll find your way and if you start today, imagine where you could be in just one year.” — Sarah Paiji Yoo, Founder & CEO, Blueland
- “Anybody who is trying to learn to do marketing is you have to niche yourself down to into a specific industry…if you pick something, be the best at it.” — Brittany Thompson, Social Marketing & Media Manager, Virtual Resort Manager
- “I’ve spent my entire life relying on light bulb moments and jumping in full-force.”— Emily Weiss, Founder, Into The Gloss & Glossier
- “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” ― Marissa Mayer, Co-Founder & CEO, Sunshine
- “In the present day corporate world, it is utmost important to build a personal brand for yourself and anyone who knows the basics of brand-building would know that it is impossible without proper self promotion!” — Abhishek Ratna, Author
- “Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.”— Sara Blakely, Founder, Spanx
Branding Marketing Quotes
Branding marketing quotes will help you consider the ways in which you share and promote your content as well as think of new and exciting ways to establish your business’ image.
Read our Ultimate Guide to Branding to learn more about branding your business and content.
- Don’t push people to where you want to be; meet them where they are.” — Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP Marketing, HubSpot
- “People will ignore or skip anything they don’t like. So brands have to start making things they love.” — Steve Pratt, Partner, Pacific Content
- “Smart marketers and smart brand managers understand the importance of leveraging frame of reference to build their brands.” — Mark Shapiro, Chair, Vistage Worldwide, Inc.
- “Brand equity is the sum of all the hearts and minds of every single person that comes into contact with your company.” — Christopher Betzter, Brand Strategist
- “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, Founder & CEO, Do You Zoom
- “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” — Walter Landor, Founder, Landor
- “Branding is about signals — the signals people use to determine what you stand for as a brand. Signals create associations.” — Allen P. Adamson, Co-Founder, Metaforce
- “A lesson learned once again through ‘the school of hard knocks’ … never lose sight of your brand, its value, and its inherent need to be fed and nurtured and placed above all else! Saving your way there is a fool’s errand.” — Chet Baker, SVP Corporate Development, Entrinsic Health Solutions
- “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” — Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO, Amazon
- “Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points.” — Jonah Sachs, Author
Inspirational marketing quotes exist to help you spark new ideas and excite your team members about the endless number of opportunities in the field. They also have the power to positively motivate your team to produce unique marketing content for your audience.
Storytelling Marketing Quotes
Storytelling marketing quotes can be used to improve the impact of the stories you and your fellow marketers tell about your business, branding, and products on your customers and target audience.
Develop your storytelling skills with our Ultimate Guide to Storytelling.
- “Nothing sticks in your head better than a story. Stories can express the most complicated ideas in the most digestible ways.” — Sam Balter, Sr. Marketing Manager of Podcasts, HubSpot
- “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, Content Marketer & Co-Author
- “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.” — Steve Jobs, Co-Founder, Apple
- “You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything.” — Beth Comstock, Former CMO & Vice Chair, GE
- “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” — Brandon Sanderson, Author
- “Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.” — Jean Luc Godard, Director, Writer, & Editor
- “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, Senior Director of Marketing & Digital Strategy, UW Medicine
- “Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” — Robert McKee, Author
- “And do you know what is the most-often missing ingredient in a sales message? It’s the sales message that doesn’t tell an interesting story. Storytelling … good storytelling … is a vital component of a marketing campaign.” — Gary Halbert, Author
- “The brands that win are the brands that tell a great story. When it comes to transmedia storytelling, the brands that win are the brands that tell many great stories and are able to connect them all together.” — Mitch Joel, Author & Founder, Six Pixels Group
Social Media Marketing Quotes
Social media marketing quotes are a great way to influence the strategies you implement at your company as well as provide thoughts about the ways in which social media can positively impact your marketing efforts.
Learn everything you need to know about social media marketing in our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing Campaigns.
- “Social media marketing is about creating content that brings your audience together as a community and inspiring authentic conversations while increasing your brand’s awareness.” — Krystal Wu, Social Media Community Manager, HubSpot
- “It’s important to be where your audience of potential customers is today, and where they might be tomorrow.” — Andrew Delaney, Senior Manager of Social Media, HubSpot
- “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, CEO, VaynerMedia
- “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, Author
- “I use social media as an idea generator, trend mapper, and strategic compass for all of our online business ventures.” — Paul Barron, CEO, Foodable Network
- “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 R. Taylor, Founder, Rev Media Marketing
- “Social media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide you.” — Matt Goulart, Founder, Ignite Digital
- “Social marketing eliminates the middlemen, providing brands the unique opportunity to have a direct relationship with their customers.” — Bryan Weiner, Board of Directors, Cars.com
- “Our head of social media is the customer.” — McDonald’s
- “Don’t use social media to impress people; use it to impact people.” — Dave Willis, Writer & Pastor
Digital Marketing Quotes
The world of digital marketing is ever-changing — the following quotes will help you think about ways in which you can ensure your digital strategy remains relevant and impactful for your target audience.
- “Businesses get blinded by the allure of a large subscription list, but unengaged subscribers aren’t just not interested in what you’re sending, they’re actually harming your deliverability.” — Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP Marketing, HubSpot
- “Marketers need to build digital relationships and reputation before closing a sale.” — Chris Brogan, President, Chris Brogan Media
- “ Less is more. Keeping it simple takes time and effort.” — Jeff Bullas, CEO, Jeffbullas.com Pty Ltd.
- “Instead of one-way interruption, web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the right moment that a buyer needs it.” — David Meerman Scott, Keynote Speaker & Author
- “Content, in all its forms, is the single most critical element of any marketing campaign.” — Rebecca Lieb, Founding Partner & Analyst, Kaleido Insights
- “Inspiration is the most important part of our digital strategy.” — Paull Young, Charitable GIving Lead, Facebook
- “Digital marketing is not an art of selling a product. It is an art of making people buy the product that you sell.” — Hecate Strategy
- “Don’t build links. Build relationships.” — Rand Fishkin, Founder, SparkToro
- “Discoverability equals sales in the digital world.” — Dev Chandan, Founder, Dev Chandan
- “Before you create any more ‘great content,’ figure out how you are going to market it first.” — Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett, Co-authors
Start Using Marketing Quotes to Inspire Your Team
Marketing quotes have the power to inspire your team members to produce their best work, drive home the points you make in meetings, and help you shed light on any type of situation at work. No matter what your company does, there are a number of quotes you can use to help you work towards your specific marketing goals both individually and with your team. So, review the sections above and find some quotes to save on your desktop, write down in your notes, or share with your co-workers today.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in April 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
