We all need a little inspiration from time to time, so if you’re feeling less motivated about your marketing efforts, it helps to take advice from the industry greats. Maybe you’ve heard these quotes a thousand times before, but taking the time to process what they mean could make all the difference in your marketing campaigns. If you need to jump-start your campaigns or you’re trying to look at things from a fresh angle, here are five great marketing quotes to help inspire you.
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker, industry management expert and author of 39 books, believed that all marketers should understand their customers above all else. Seeking out customers that already have an interest in what your company provides is the key to selling your product or service. You need to have a deep understanding or your audience in order to be successful at marketing. Do the hard work of getting to know your customers and your products will—as Drucker says—practically sell themselves.
“The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.” – David Ogilvy
It’s important to remember that each consumer is a real person. If you begin to talk down to your potential customers, you’ll very quickly start to lose their respect. David Ogilvy, widely hailed as “The Father of Advertising”, knew that marketers should never overlook the intelligence of their customers. He also believed that you should sell to others how you would sell to your own loved ones. If you have respect for your audience, there’s a greater chance they’ll have respect for you.
“The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.” – Seth Godin
Many marketers spend a lot of time worrying about the cost of something, without taking into account the cost of not doing something. Seth Godin is a bestselling author and currently one of the industry’s most popular thought-leaders, so he knows a thing or two about taking action. He believes that marketers shouldn’t worry so much about doing something wrong, as long as they’re willing to learn from it. Doing something wrong is often much better than being inactive and afraid.
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs was an incredible innovator—he knew how to think ahead and how companies should approach their customers. Most marketers spend too much time focusing on what consumers want now and they forget to think about what consumers might want in the future. Clearly, this is a hard thing to excel at, but you don’t want to build a product that will be old news by the time you’re ready to sell it. Don’t try to build a company or product based on what’s already out there. If you’re going to be an innovator, you need to think about where your industry is going and what your customers are going to want next.
“Make the customer the hero of your story.” – Ann Handley
As a marketer, it’s important that you know a lot about storytelling. Ann Handley, Head of Content at MarketingProfs, knows that you have to keep your customers directly involved. The more you create content that’s about the customers themselves instead of just your brand, the more you’ll be able to see things from a fresh angle. Content needs to be customer-centric if you want it to be engaging because consumers like to see how your products and services will affect their lives, not the other way around.
Learning from the industry greats is sometimes the best way to get motivated. What are your favorite marketing quotes? What have you learned from the professionals? Share with us!