Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.”
by Joe Chernov
The marketing industry is growing rapidly. This sector is estimated to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17.6%, which is much higher as compared to 6.55% CAGR of the automobile industry, and 9.8% of the apparel industry. In value, it is expected to reach a level of $807 billion by 2026 from $305 billion in 2020.
This fast-evolving industry is characterized by several new strategies, technologies, concepts, methods, updates, etc. being introduced every day. Beginners often struggle to understand and keep pace with these rapidly changing concepts, causing a lot of worry and anxiety, resulting in average or low performance in their marketing efforts.
However, here’s an interesting hack!
Start following the top marketers of the world, who are specialized in realizing new marketing ideas, methods, and evolving concepts, and presenting those to the general audience in a simple and understandable way. This could prove to be a goldmine for your marketing career.
As a marketer, it is crucial to learn about those top marketing leaders.
So, here we have listed the top 10 living marketers in the world who will motivate and guide you to thrive in this industry.
1. Neil Patel
Neil Patel is popularly known as the “Guru” of digital marketing. He is the bestselling author in the New York Times and a digital marketing expert.
According to the Wall Street Journal, he is the best influencer on the web, whereas according to Forbes, he falls in the category of top 10 marketers.
‘Former US President Obama’ marks him as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 whereas United Nations declared him as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35.
He blogs at NeilPatel.com; about SEO insights, backlinks, businesses in general, eCommerce topics, and much more around marketing.
He is a serial entrepreneur and has helped multiple companies to grow through his marketing expertise. These companies include SalesForce, Amazon, General Motors, Microsoft, American Greetings, Airbnb, Zappos, Google, Intuit, Thomson Reuters, NBC, Viacom, etc.
Neil Patel says
“As a young entrepreneur, you should not be afraid to take risks but you also need to know what are you getting into.”
Let us have a look at his five most important learnings that can guide you in your journey:
- Specialize yourself in one field than trying a thousand things.
- Give away resources for free after achieving success and making money.
- Be consistent and try to get better every day.
- Be an inspiration for others.
- Instill hope and understanding of others.
2. Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary Vaynerchuk known as “GaryVee” is a serial entrepreneur. He is the CEO of VaynerMedia and Chairman of VaynerX, popularly known as the most “forward thinker” in the world of business.
He precisely understands the changes in the field of marketing and motivates others to understand how these changes impact consumer behavior, business, and the market.
He is a private investor and has invested in different companies like Uber, Facebook, Coinbase, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, Snapchat, and Venmo. His advertising agency VaynerMedia helped one thousand brands to grow in their field.
Gary V. is the most popular public speaker, with more than 30 million followers across all social platforms.
Gary is described as the “king” of social media marketing. His famous quote, “Turn your passion into a profession” motivates everyone.
Some of his valuable lessons are:
- Work hard to achieve success.
- Become aware of your strengths and weaknesses.
- Strive to chart your path to success.
- Build self-confidence and advertise yourself.
- Do your work with passion.
- Follow your heart and consider your advice
3. Seth Godin
Seth Godin is an American marketer, best-selling author, businessman, entrepreneur, and public speaker. In 1986, he started his own company named Seth Godin Productions, with his $20,000 savings.
Furthermore, after meeting Mark Hurst, who is a journalist and internet entrepreneur, Seth Godin founded another company named “Yoyodyne” which is a massive success.
In 2000, he wrote the book ‘Unleashing the Ideavirus.’ In this book, you will find practical and powerful advice related to business and marketing.
Additionally, he also launched a website named Squidoo. This website shares valuable information on multiple topics.
His books and presentations educate and allow people to adapt to changes in their life. He sees marketing from the point of view of ethics rather than sales.
His motto builds confidence and helps us to stay motivated.
“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from”
These are the top six learnings of Seth Godin that one can practice in his/her approach:
- Focus on the audience you care about.
- Never break your promises.
- Develop empathy to engage with your customers.
- Practice makes a difference.
- Work on the real goal to achieve success.
- Listen to your real customers as everyone is not your customer.
4. Sorav Jain
Sorav Jain is a famous digital marketing expert from India. He begins his journey at the age of 17 years old as an SEO chief. His involvement in the digital marketing industry is extraordinary.
He leads a digital marketing agency echoVME in Chennai. In this agency, his best social media strategists work to strive for excellence. According to Sorav Jain,
Digital Marketing is all about practice.
Social Samosa listed him as a top social media marketer under the age of 30, whereas Global Youth Marketing declared him as a top 25 social media professional in India.
He started his first digital marketing agency in September 2019 in Chennai. It provides more than 18 modules that help to gain information about every aspect of digital marketing.
In the field of digital marketing, Facebook advertisements, and personal branding, he has trained more than 1 lakh professionals. His achievements are a great source of inspiration for others.
Some of his life learnings are:
- In this busy digital life, do not forget your social life as well as yourself.
- Never judge a post based on likes.
- Learn daily to become one of the best digital marketers.
- Do not run for the quantity of the content rather work towards the quality of the content.
- Excessive marketing is not good for your business.
5. Larry Kim
Larry Kim is the founder and CEO of a chatbot builder company called, MobileMonkey. These MobileMonkey chatbots allow businesses to connect with real customers through Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS, and Web chat.
In 2019, he won the Barry M. Portnoy Immigrant Award for being a great technology entrepreneur. From the House of Representatives & US Senate, he has received special recognition for providing job opportunities and contributing to the Boston economy.
Larry actively participates and speaks at various conferences across the world. As a prolific author, he loves to deliver his knowledge on popular marketing websites such as Business Insider, Wordstream Blog, Search Engine Land, Moz Blog, Social Media Today, etc.
In chatbot marketing, SEO, start-ups, PPC marketing, entrepreneurship, Facebook Ads, and AdWords, Larry Kim shares his experience and research as well as he is an expert in these areas. He says,
“It doesn’t matter how much effort you put in, it’s more about consistency”.
As Larry Kim loves to share his experience, he also shared ten amazing lessons which he has followed in his life.
If you adapt these lessons, it will help you to achieve better results.
- Stay positive and learn from your mistakes.
- Identify several business ideas and test them before picking the best one.
- Nurture and encourage your team.
- Success is great. Do not use it as an excuse to stop being awesome.
- Be funny, outrageous, and ironic but don’t be boring.
- Be a unicorn in the sea of donkeys.
- Try to gain external experience and knowledge which will help you to guide your growth.
- Besides earning money do not forget to experience the insights you gain about life and work.
- Keep your doubts to yourself.
- Chase perfection.
6. Jon Loomer
Jon Loomer is an author, Facebook marketing coach, speaker & strategist. In 2007, while working for the National Basketball Association he started using Facebook for business purposes. And, in 2011 Jon launched Jon Loomer Digital.
After a few years, he established JonLoomer.com as well as a Facebook page for providing marketing guidelines, tutorials, and research.
His area of expertise is Facebook business coaching. In the year 2013, JonLoomer.com is declared one of the social media examiner’s Top 10 social media blogs.
He is the vice president of the ‘American Cancer Society.’ His role is to look after the planning, piloting, and experimentation of all digital marketing. It also includes email marketing, Facebook applications, and social media strategies.
Furthermore, from 2005 to 2008, he was the senior manager of fantasy games for the NBA (National Basketball Association). In this association, his role is to run product, content, and marketing for the National Basket Associations Fantasy Games.
In 2007, he partnered with Facebook to build an app. At that time NBA provided him with his first exposure to using Facebook for business purposes.
Besides his achievements and expertise, his learnings are also crucial to becoming successful.
Let us have a closer look at his advice:
- Be someone who can be trusted as well as follow those whom you trust.
- Try to create something unique so that other people do not find it confusing.
- Do not run for shortcuts.
- Try to establish solutions instead of applying tips and secrets.
- Admit when you are wrong.
- Admit when you do not know a particular thing.
7. Brian Dean
‘Entrepreneur.com’ declared Brian Dean as an “SEO expert” whereas ‘Inc Magazine’ considers Brian Dean as a “Brilliant entrepreneur.” Backlinko.com is Brian’s award-winning blog. According to Forbes, it is one of the top blogs to follow.
According to Success Magazine, he is the world’s expert on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Backlinko provides lessons that he learned throughout his journey.
After establishing Backlinko, he published different strategies to help different marketers to grow their businesses.
His work has been featured in different media outlets.
Brain Dean’s blog provides multiple pieces of information to the audience.
The audience can learn a lot, but apart from his blog, they can learn more from his experience as well.
- Follow different growth strategies.
- Focus on your customer’s needs.
- Spend your time and money on something that makes you nervous. It is a crucial aspect of becoming a successful entrepreneur.
- Learn content promotion and link-building strategies.
- Pay keen attention to the trends that affect your industry.
8. Sara Bennison
Since 2016, Sara Bennison is a marketing officer and chief of production at ‘Nationwide.’ Her full name is Sara Phillipa Bennison. She served as a CMO (Chief Medical Officer) at Barclays Bank.
In 2003, before working as a managing partner at Grey London, Bennison worked at several agencies like Bates Dorland & D’Arcy.
Additionally, before moving to Barclays, she became the head of marketing communications at BT. She stayed in this role for more than a year.
She is a very soft-spoken person and an excellent leader. She always gives credit to her team for her success, and she deals with her problems confidently which makes her unique from other marketers.
Her lessons and personal insights are the most valuable aspect to learn from.
- Go slow.
- Be kind.
- Respect everyone.
- Adopt creativity to turn your problems into something good.
- Do not undersell marketing.
- To be a good marketer, adapt confidence, and solve problems with a creative approach, and determination.
- Mistakes will become a part of your story with the ability to understand better.
9. Jitendra Vaswani
Jitendra Vaswani is a digital marketing practitioner and an international keynote speaker. Currently, he lives a digital nomad lifestyle. He is the founder of BoggersIdea.com. He interviewed the legends of marketing like ‘Rand Fishkin’, and ‘Neil Patel.’
He is an expert in the field of digital marketing, serving as a marketing trainer and a marketing consultant. More than 10,000 digital marketing professionals are trained by him, and he also conducts workshops around digital marketing.
His main motive is to help people grow their businesses and make them realize that dreams are turned into reality when you work with full dedication. Over popular social media channels, he is considered one of the best influencers.
He has strong knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SMO (Social Media Optimization), and Google Adwords.
To become a sharp digital marketer, his learnings might help you.
- Keep up with the latest trends in digital marketing.
- Gain knowledge about the digital space.
- Be open-minded.
- Learn new things from everyone.
- Build relationships.
- Attend multiple events.
- Connect with the right people.
10. Jennifer Polk
Jennifer Polk is a managing vice president at Gartner as well as she is a digital experience officer.
Jennifer Polk gained experience in the field of marketing and business by working for more than 18 years. She has experience across B2B and B2C organizations.
Her area of specialization is social marketing, digital marketing, personalization, marketing agencies, and digital commerce.
She talks about multiple digital marketing strategies that help consumer brands and businesses to engage with customers. She believes that collaboration and delivering experience give a proper shape to an organization.
Also, she deeply cares about social injustice, hunger, economic and racial disparity as well as human rights.
She is an accomplished leader with a vision of overseeing management and marketing digital strategies that would increase revenues and delivers organizational change.
Her life lessons are as powerful as her achievements:
- Always think big.
- Keep introducing new methods and ideas.
- Be unique.
- Make connections with the right partners.
- Always get back up.
- Run for smart growth.
- Engage top marketing talents.
Takeaways
That’s all on our list. These marketing leaders and their lessons, blogs, videos, or social media content would help you solve your marketing-related queries.
I hope you enjoyed this post.
Let me know in the comments; which one of the above marketers is your favorite? Also, do you think we have left any of the marketing leaders who can be included in this list?
Nice Article
Thank you
Well..nice article👍👍👍ahead to see more .👍all the best
Thank you
Thanks a lot
An article full of insights. Thank you moyuri. I will try to implement some of the learning and already followed some influencers you mentioned. Loved it 🙌
That’s great. Thank you so much🥰
I liked your article and look forward to your article
Thank you
❤