8 Marketing Tips from the Greatest Marketers of All Time

Although the greatest marketers of all time bring us different lessons, approaches, and philosophies, they all achieve the same results: sales, loyalty, and brand recognition. I found these Marketing tips interesting because they relate not just to business but to how we interact with people every single day.

Dale Carnegie: Give People What They Want

“Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.” ― Dale Carnegie

People are inherently self-absorbed. They want their problems to be fixed. Realizing that you’re not creating something for yourself but for others is key to writing copy, telling stories, and providing a customer journey that impacts their decisions.

Impacted = Persuaded

Henry Ford: Understand Consumers

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” -Henry Ford

Unknown Desires Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt, history praises Ford by saying “His real genius, was marketing.” Ford recognized the needs and wants of his target market for than they did.

He was noted for saying, “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” Ford knew the desires of his target market before they knew how to articulate them. He took this and created the Model-T which was the first car to be mass-produced. Genius.

Walt Disney: Create an unforgettable experience

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney

Walt changed the world of entertainment and created magical experiences for people of all ages. Disney is known for being “The Most Magical Place on Earth” and where “Dreams Come True.” Why? The 360 experience. You watch a Disney movie. You want to visit Disneyland or Disney World to experience the movie in real life.

You buy a toy based on the movie on the way out. What made it magical was Disney’s attention to detail to make it the most memorable experience possible.

Disney is known for making corporate and park employees ride the rides before they opened to the public. He would take the feedback and reiterate it as needed to make it as amazing as possible.

He is known for saying that he wanted to create experiences that marketed themselves. A touch of imagination and nostalgia, and you have an experience that keeps bringing people back.

There is a warm and positive association with the brand, which is upheld in all of its advertising, messaging, and content. Creating a complete experience for the customer is important.

David Ogilvy: Test Everything

“Never stop testing and your advertising will never stop improving”. -David Ogilvy

Ogilvy was an adamant believer in testing, testing, testing, even saying that “The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST.” His first success came from a postcard campaign he ran at the grand opening of a hotel. He first ran a split test of the postcards with exclusive responses so he could track the success.

The best performing postcard was then rolled out nationally. The hotel’s grand opening was a grand success and was achieved with a $500 budget. To produce the greatest work, you must test, understand, and be enthusiastic about the product.

Mary Kay Ash: Know Your Audience

“People will buy more readily when they can take their products with them.” -Mary Kay

Mary Kay Ash was repeatedly known for saying “know your audience.” She started her cosmic empire in 1963 on the basis of network marketing. Network marketing involves tapping into the personal networks of independent agents within a company. She integrated this marketing tactic successfully into the middle class.

Knowing her audience, she enlisted the stay-at-home mom who wanted a different route than the 9–5 to make additional income. The more they sold, the more they made. And her top salespeople? Yeah, they got pink Cadillacs.

This itself is a genius move. Every salesperson who received a pink Cadillac was a traveling mobile ad for Mary Kay.

Steve Jobs: Make a Quality Product

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” -Steve Jobs

Steve Job was always ahead of his time. He used quality products to frame the narrative Apple told.

Apple’s advertising would not only help create one of history’s most successful companies, but it would also change the traditional marketing strategy as we know it. Through its Super Bowl ad, series of “Think Different” ads, “Get a Mac” campaign, and unmissable product unveilings, its overall cool and minimalist marketing strategy embodies the sleek design of its products and helped turn a bankrupt Apple around.

He understood and leveraged the idea that quality products and smart marketing campaigns are the keys to success. He created show-stopping experiences and tapped into the emotions of his audience to sell his products. He built an emotional brand experience through events and campaigns while continuing to innovate for his customers.

De Beer: Control supply and demand

“I have found out one thing and that its, if you have an idea and it is a good idea, if you only stick to it you will come out all right.” — Cecil Rhodes

Along with some great campaign fliers the “diamond is forever” saying comes from De Beer. Advertising Age Magazine named it the best advertising slogan of the 20th century.

Diamonds weren’t always the precious and expensive rarity we know them as today — in fact, they’ve been called “intrinsically worthless”. It took crafty strategy and advertising on behalf of De Beers to keep the diamond’s reputation as valuable and desirable.

In the late 19th century, diamonds were discovered in South Africa and the market became flooded. To keep diamonds valuable, Cecil Rhodes bought and merged all of the South African mining fields and the companies working on them, including one owned by two brothers with the last name De Beer. The De Beers Mining Company was formed, monopolizing all production and distribution of diamonds coming from South Africa.

Since the company controlled the distribution and supply of the majority of the market’s diamonds, they created the product’s false scarcity and therefore drove up prices.

Additionally, in 1938 they pushed their marketing campaign: “Two months’ salary showed the future Mrs. Smith what the future will be like.”

Their campaign convinced consumers that diamonds equated to love and that the bigger the diamond, the greater the expression of love.

Today, nearly all engaged couples are proving their commitment to each other with diamond rings, a direct result of the De Beers marketing campaign. They proved that limiting supply stimulates demand and that creating strong emotional associations with products is an extremely successful strategy.

Seth Godin: Be remarkable

“In your career, even more than for a brand, being safe is risky. The path to lifetime job security is to be remarkable.” — Seth Godin

Seth Godin taught us that people are attracted to the remarkable. In order to appeal to the market, you’ve got to stand out to the market. You do that by being the best, being different, being unique, being cutting edge, being retro, being anything that’s not what the crowd is — in other words, being the purple cow in a field of brown and white cattle.

It’s not just enough to get someone’s attention; you can run naked down Main Street to get attention. You have to be remarkable enough to get — and keep — people’s attention.

Which one of these tips stood out to you? Start incorporating these strategies into your marketing campaigns and you’ll achieve end goals like no other.