Top 40 Philip Kotler Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The best advertising is done by satisfied customers.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Inspirational Business Quotes, Satisfaction Quotes, Marketing Quotes

2. “The sales department isn’t the whole company, but the whole company better be the sales department.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Sales Motivational Quotes, Marketing Quotes

3. “Integrated marketing communications is a way of looking at the whole marketing process from the view point of the customer.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Communication Quotes, Marketing Quotes

4. “Marketing is a race without a finishing line.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

5. “Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately, it takes a lifetime to master.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

6. “The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you arenot a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner.”

— Philip Kotler

7. “Today you have to run faster to stay in place.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Competition Quotes

8. “It is no longer enough to satisfy your customers. You must delight them.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Service Quotes, Marketing Quotes

9. “Every business is a service business. Does your service put a smile on the customer’s face?”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Service Quotes, Satisfaction Quotes, Marketing Quotes

10. “Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

11. “Watch the product life cycle; but more important, watch the market life cycle.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

12. “The successful salesperson cares first for the customer, second for the products.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Sales Motivational Quotes

13. “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

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

14. “Good companies will meet needs; great companies will create markets.”

— Philip Kotler

15. “Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

16. “The most important thing is to forecast where customers are moving, and be in front of them.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

17. “Marketing is becoming a battle based more on information than on sales power.”

— Philip Kotler

Featured in: Marketing Quotes

18. “Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers and benefits for the stakeholders.”

— Philip Kotler

19. “The future isn’t ahead of us. It has already happened.”

— Philip Kotler

20. “Poor firms ignore their competitors; average firms copy their competitors; winning firms lead their competitors.”

— Philip Kotler

21. “The theory of marketing is solid but the practice of marketing leaves much to be desired.”

— Philip Kotler

22. “It is more important to do what is strategically right than what is immediately profitable.”

— Philip Kotler

23. “Today’s smart marketers don’t sell products; they sell benefit packages. They don’t sell purchase value only; they sell use value.”

— Philip Kotler

24. “There is no such thing as a commodity. It is simply a product waiting to be differentiated.”

— Philip Kotler

25. “Don’t buy market share. Figure out how to earn it.”

— Philip Kotler

26. “Companies pay too much attention to the cost of doing something. They should worry more about the cost of not doing it.”

— Philip Kotler

27. “Every company should work hard to obsolete its own product line – before its competitors do.”

— Philip Kotler

28. “A good company offers excellent products and services. A great company also offers excellent products and services but also strives to make the world a better place.”

— Philip Kotler

29. “Marketing is the set of human activities directed at facilitating and consummating exchanges.”

— Philip Kotler

30. “The best way to hold customers is to constantly figure out how to give them more for less.”

— Philip Kotler

31. “The key to branding, especially for smaller firms, is to focus on a limited number of issue areas and develop superb expertise in those areas.”

— Philip Kotler

32. “Competitive advantage is a companys ability to perform in one or more ways that competitors cannot or will not match.”

— Philip Kotler

33. “Good customers are an asset which, when wellmanaged and served, will return a handsome lifetime income stream for the company.”

— Philip Kotler

34. “The art of marketing is largely the art of brand building. When something is not a brand, it will be probably be viewed as a commodity.”

— Philip Kotler

35. “The internet will create the winnerand bury the laggards.”

— Philip Kotler

36. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

— Philip Kotler

37. “Your company does not belong inmarkets where it cannot be the best.”

— Philip Kotler

38. “There are three kinds of companies: those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who wonder what’s happened. – Anonymous.”

— Philip Kotler

39. “Today’s economic landscape is being shaped by two powerful forces – technology and globalization.”

— Philip Kotler

40. “No company in its right mind tries to sell to everyone.”

— Philip Kotler

41. “Marketing 5.0, by definition, is the application of human-mimicking technologies to create, communicate, deliver, and enhance value across the customer journey.”

— Philip Kotler

42. “In the internet world, we know the f-factors: followers, fans, and friends.”

— Philip Kotler

43. “In making purchase decisions, customers are essentially influenced by three factors. First, they are influenced by marketing communications in various media such as television ads, print ads, and public relations. Second, they are persuaded by the opinions of their friends and family. Third, they also have personal knowledge and an attitude about certain brands based on past experiences.”

— Philip Kotler

44. “This is the portrait of the future customers – connected yet distracted. A survey by the National Center for Biotechnological Information shows that the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013. This can be attributed to the massive and overwhelming volume of messages that constantly bombard our connected mobile devices and demand instant attention.”

— Philip Kotler

45. “Thus, they do not need to understand the statistical and mathematical models in depth. However, marketers need to understand the fundamental ideas behind a predictive model so that they can guide the technical teams to select data to use and which patterns to find.”

— Philip Kotler

46. “Random conversations about brands are now more credible than targeted advertising campaigns. Social circles have become the main source of influence, overtaking external marketing communications and even personal preference. Customers tend to follow the lead of their peers when deciding which brand to choose. It is as if customers were protecting themselves from false brand claims and campaign trickeries by using their social circles to build a fortress.”

— Philip Kotler