Propel by Whitney Keyes - Book review

Propel

Five Ways to Amp-Up Your Marketing and Accelerate Business

By: Whitney Keyes

Published: August 22, 2012
Format: Paperback, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 1601632339
ISBN-13: 978-1601632333
Publisher: Career Press








"Where many people get tripped up in their marketing is not in their ability to do it,but in their knowledge about it", writes marketing expert, blogger, and global business strategist Whitney Keyes, in her straight talking and very hands on book Propel: Five Ways to Amp-Up Your Marketing and Accelerate Business. The author describes a strategic approach to marketing that combines the latest social media marketing methods with the timeless techniques of traditional marketing to create a powerful synthesis to expand market shares, enhance loyalty to a company's brands, and increase profits.

Whitney Keyes recognizes that that there are tangible benefits for companies through the utilization of traditional marketing strategies, and bottom line increases that result from implementation of social media techniques. Rather than choose either one marketing system or the other, the author offers a combination of the best concepts from both the old and the new marketing processes. The result is a stronger marketing program that exploits opportunities that would remain hidden from either traditional marketers on the one hand, or from social media marketers on the other. Whitney Keyes presents a comprehensive marketing approach that is also customizable to zero in on the unique aspects of any organization and its brands.



Whitney Keyes (photo left) understands that companies make mistakes in their marketing programs because they are missing the basic knowledge about effective marketing. Despite that lack of information, marketers believe they are doing a good job with their marketing strategy. The author disagrees with the marketing executive self assessment and lists the following five most common marketing mistakes:

* Being impatient
* Overachieving
* Obsessing
* Getting overwhelmed
* Being overconfident

To overcome these five frequent marketing errors, Whitney Keyes shares her five ways to improve a firm's marketing. The five principles are as follows:

* Strategy: Set your course for success
* Story: Connect with the people who matter the most
* Strength: Boost your efforts by extending your reach
* Simplicity: Keep the plan and process straightforward
* Speed: Accelerate and move forward

For me, the power of the book is how Whitney Keyes combines a comprehensive framework for combining traditional and new marketing effectively, with the practical steps and processes to implement that new strategy. The author takes an overall strategic approach to marketing, with an emphasis on a holistic route to success. All too often, the strategic thinking in an organization becomes overwhelmed by the tactics to put the plan into action. What is left is a piecemeal system that repeats the mistakes outlined by the author.

Whitney Keyes avoids that trap by always keeping the marketer aware of the overarching strategy. The tactics are then implemented to put the overall strategy into action. The author adds value to the book by providing a series of thought provoking and probing questions, at the end of each chapter, for the reader to consider for their own organizational strategy. Whitney Keyes also presents a series of case studies that illustrate the principles at work in the real world. The examples provide context and visualization of the concepts, ensuring their overall understanding by thhe reader.

I highly recommend the empowering and very practical book Propel: Five Ways to Amp-Up Your Marketing and Accelerate Business by Whitney Keyes, to any marketing executives, strategists, CEOs, brand managers, and entrepreneurs seeking to take their marketing to the next level, while avoiding the mistakes that have hurt otherwise great brands and companies. This book will create a strategic approach to marketing within any organization, and result in a stronger bottom line.