Marketing Quotes – My Favorites

“Google loves brands – build one.” Dave Naylor

“Dumb it down and round up.” Kevin Doohan

“Paid search can live in a silo in an organization. SEO touches everything.” Seth Besmirtnik, during a presentation at SES NY 2010.

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” Albert Einstein

“When I talk to SEOs now who throw around how long they have been in the business I happily tell them I have only been professionally doing this for a portion of their lengthy career, because in the end talent and drive are what this game is all about, not the number of years someone has been mediocre.” Dave Snyder

“Human nature has a tendency to admire complexity but reward simplicity.” Ben Huh, CEO, Cheezburger Network

I’ve pretty much never thought to myself  “I wish I had taken less notes during that meeting.” Todd Malicoat

“Ultimately if we want resources allocated towards SEO work, we must be able to communicate the value of that work in return on investment (ROI) or return on ad spend (ROAS) language.” Brain Klais, Netconcepts

“The interesting thing about averages is that they hide the truth very effectively.”
Avinash Kaushik, in a Google Analytics video

“Content is NOT king – seeding and promotion tactics of said content is king.”
Brian Chappell, via Twitter

“SEO is by nature a cross-functional exercise. It involves many different departments, all working together towards a common goal. An SEO initiative severely tests the communication and cooperative capabilities of an organization. It requires Marketing, IT, product managers and often legal to all work together, and the faster they can do this, the more positive the results will be. In the most competitive categories, it’s a full out and ongoing war. The companies that can respond and adapt quickly will win that war. The ones mired in bureaucracy and butt covering will inevitably sink in the rankings.”
Gord Hotchkiss, President, Enquiro

PPC: 88% of all SEM spend VS. SEO: 11% of all SEM spend
PPC: 10% of all search clicks VS. SEO: 90% of all search clicks
Markets don’t stay this inefficient for long
Rand Fishkin, SEOMoz

“If the web is indeed a place, it is starting to look less like a library, and more like a river.” Peter Da Vanzo

“A strong foundation increases the value of everything you do.” Aaron Wall, discussing SEO strategies.

“You are only as good as your IT connections when it comes to search engine optimization in a large organization.” Tony Wright

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

“If you are a marketing professional who wants to reach your buyers directly, you will likely encounter resistance from corporate communications people. They’ll say the old rules are still in play. They’ll say you have to focus on “the four P’s”. They’ll say you need to talk only about your products. They’ll say that the media is the only way to tell your story and that you can use press releases only to reach journalists, not your buyers directly. They’ll say that bloggers are geeks in pajamas who don’t matter. They are wrong.” David Meerman Scott, The New Rules of Marketing and PR

“PR people are doing themselves a disservice when they just treat journalists and bloggers like cattle. Every time I get an email pitch it reminds me that I’m being treated like cattle. Especially when I get together with Arrington and Malik and Lacy and other bloggers and we see that we got the same pitch. Moooooo!” Robert Scoble

“If you don’t have someone responsible and accountable for turning all of the online dials and clearly setting the direction for your online strategy as well as making sure your strategy lines up with all of the other marketing programs that are being executed, your online strategy will fail.” Rob Crigler, Director of Interactive Marketing, Orkin

“The urgent can drown out the important.” Marissa Mayer

“SEO isn’t an entitlement program. It’s an ongoing investment that must be resourced properly. It’s not a one-hit, one-phrase paradigm. It’s not built on quick wins for trophy phrases. There are hard costs and soft costs associated with building a successful SEO strategy that deserve proper budget allocations.” P.J. Fusco, The ClickZ Network

“Will someone out there besides Google please get their shit together?” David, commenting on Facebook’s unimpressive targeting capabilities.

“Outsourcing isn’t the answer to everything. Lots of internet marketing pundits will tell you to outsource, outsource, outsource. Having a trusted team that knows each other and enjoys working together is good, too.” Ian Lurie

“Customer experience Is the new advertising department.” Max Kalehoff

“The key with blogging is to lay it all out there because sooner or later people are going to know what you know, so might as well be the first one to share the information and get credit for it.” Neil Patel

“Today’s marketing success comes from self-publishing Web content that people want to share. It’s not about gimmicks. It’s not about paying an agency to interrupt others.” David Meerman Scott, Author, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, from BtoB Magazine, March, 2008

“You’d think media companies would be all over social media. I mean, media is their business. No one should be better than they are at leading the way. They’re sitting on a gold mine of assets. Awesome writers, tons of video and images, lots of “Social Objects.” Media companies are the ones who can get the conversations started and keep it going.

“But they’re getting their ass handed to them by blogs. They, like companies in other industries embracing social software and principles, are beating the crap out of the later adopters.” Sam Lawrence

“Trying to increase sales simply by driving more traffic to a website with a poor customer conversion rate is like trying to keep a leaky bucket full by adding more water instead of plugging the holes.” Bryan Eisenberg, Call to Action

“A year from now heavily advertised linkbait followed by a 301 redirect will be one of the most potent SEO weapons on the market.” Aaron Wall, March 15, 2008

“The skills of an SEM are analogous to those of an accountant. The skills of an SEO are analogous to those of a lawyer. The SEM works the numbers, the SEO has to make a case.” Ian McAnerin

“…the sort of people who have been doing “new” SEO, or whatever you want to call it, that’s social media optimization, link bait, things that are interesting to people and attract word of mouth and buzz, those sorts of sites naturally attract visitors, attract repeat visitors, attract back links, attract lots of discussion, those sorts of sites are going to benefit as the world goes forward.” – Matt Cutts in an interview with Gord Hotchkiss

“It is not the job of Search Engine Optimization to make a pig fly. It is the job of the SEO to genetically re-engineer the web site so that it becomes an eagle.” Bruce Clay

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” Niels Bohr

“SEO is knowing what the search engines want and giving it to them… so hard they f***ing bleed” Dave Naylor

“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

“SEO is a marketing function for sure, but it needs to be baked into a product, not slapped on like icing after the cake is baked.” Duane Forrester

“The biggest challenge it presents is that it causes marketers to show what they can do upfront. You’re an expert on Shakira? Really, where’s your video? Where are your audio files? Where are your images? If they’re not on my search engine results page I’ll assume you don’t have them. The days of digging into a site to find media are over. Either you show it to me immediately or I’m bored.” Lisa Barone

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

“Being #1 on MSN is like being Valedictorian of summer school.” Craig McDonald

“Why is an accountant who knows the regulation and codes and takes advantage of tax loopholes that save you thousands of dollars each year good, But SEO’s who take advantages of loopholes and flaws in Google’s algorithm to bring you traffic that makes you thousands of dollars bad?” Michael Gray

“It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle.” Grokdotcom

HIPPO = Highest Paid Persons Opinion, Avinash Kaushik

“Search marketing, and most Internet marketing in fact, can be very threatening because there are no rules. There’s no safe haven. To do it right, you need to be willing to be wrong. But search marketing done right is all about being wrong. Experimentation is the only way. No one really knows whether that page will rank #1 in Google; no one really knows which paid search copy will get the highest click rate. Even experts can’t tell you which content will attract the most links. You just have to try it and see.” Mike Moran, IBM

“This is not your father’s marketing. Instead of “do it right no matter what”, search marketing demands that you “do it wrong quickly and then fix it.” Mike Moran, IBM

“Web analytics is a fire extinguisher. Your website is on fire and you’re burning cash.” Jim Sterne, at an Emetrics Summit

“Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.” W. Edwards Deming

“It’s hard to target a message to a generic 35-year-old middle-class working mother of two. It’s much easier to target a message to Jennifer, who has two children under four, works as a paralegal, and is always looking for quick but healthy dinners and ways to spend more time with her kids and less time on housework.” Elizabeth Gardner, Internet Retailer

“The Google SERPs are like the 10 seats in the front row of a hot concert. If you can get some strong friends to help you fill up the front row and keep the bum rushers and hecklers away – you’ll enjoy a perfect view with no hassles or interruptions.” Brett Borders

“Corporate SEO is largely about trimming away the fats and fully leveraging the assets you already have.” Aaron Wall

“It’s better to think of social media tools as amplifying customer opinion rather than improving it.” Joshua Porter

“The social Web is incredibly good at shining bright lights into dark corners…” Dave Evans

“Although your time and attention are finite, the demands on your time and attention are infinite.” Merlin Mann, founder of 43 folders, discussing Inbox Zero

“Content is NOT king – seeding and promotion tactics of said content is king.”