In this issue:
- In Our Opinion: Are You Addressing the Mobile Marketing Talent Gap?
- Blog Roundup:
- Mobile Marketing 2013 Forum Recap – What You Need to Know!
- Career Announcements: Digital Consulting, HR Consulting, Investment Banking & Financial Services
In Our Opinion
Are You Addressing the Mobile Marketing Talent Gap?
by Jeff Gundersen & Lola White
OVERVIEW – Mobile Adoption is Scaling Rapidly
Organizations know consumers’ attention is increasingly being drawn to their mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.), but most marketers are still in the early stages of mobile marketing strategy development — and they face an uphill climb to evolve beyond basic mobile marketing strategies to building the dedicated mobile marketing organizations and recruiting/developing/training the talent required for sustained future mobile marketing growth and success.
Marketers need to assess the current and future mobile talent needs (and gaps) and develop “best practices” related to education, hiring, training, and development of the future mobile marketing talent needed for sustained success in this new connected mobile marketing age.
CENTRAL ISSUES – Mobile Talent Gap
Consumer mobile adoption is outpacing mobile marketing talent investment. The central issue facing marketers is the rapid pace of consumer mobile adoption outpacing mobile marketing talent investment as marketers are still at an early stage in proving ROI of mobile marketing investments. Only 16% of marketers out of 250 global marketers surveyed have developed a mobile strategy, according to an October 2012 report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council and 46% of marketers surveyed in this study said they are evaluating the role of mobile in their organizations. One major factor slowing marketers response is proving the ROI case for increasing mobile marketing investments.
Consumer adoption of mobile technology is increasing extremely rapidly. Marketers understand that mobile has opened up a new touch point through which they can engage their customers, but while mobile budgets and programs are on the upswing, they don’t yet come close to matching consumer enthusiasm. By the end of 2012, more than one-half of US online adults owned smartphones — and 45% of US online adults fall into a category Forrester calls “SuperConnecteds”- people who use the mobile Internet at least weekly and who download and use applications and consume news and information on their smartphones.
Marketers are behind in developing mobile organizational strategies. Most large marketers are spending $1 million to $5 million on mobile marketing today, and 60% of them expect their budgets to increase significantly in 2013. However, the CMO Council’s study findings point to marketers treating mobile as a standalone channel instead of being incorporated into an overall strategy. Additionally, 47% of CMOs said they are not satisfied because of a lack of talent or resources to roll out mobile engagements.
Additional Findings CMO Council Study
“Mobile spend should be an integral part and extension of all marketing and customer relationship investments including customer help, service and support, advertising and custom content delivery, website interactions, word of mouth and search optimization, loyalty and rewards program management, feedback and insight gathering, point-of-sale merchandising and shopper marketing as well as campaign performance measurement,” said Donovan Neale-May, Founder & Executive Director or The CMO Council.
Mobile strategies are still young. More than one-third of marketers say their company has had a mobile strategy for just two years, and another one-third have even less experience with the mobile channel. It’s still early days for most companies with this emerging channel. They’re still figuring out what mobile means to their businesses — which tactics to use, how to use them, and how to staff to support the programs.
Companies are using a variety of talent and staffing approaches to support mobile programs. This increased investment in mobile requires an increase in talent and staffing support — but there’s no one way that companies are staffing fast enough to meet the growing talent needs. Internally, only a small percentage of marketers have hired full-time mobile-dedicated employees, others are having full-time digital marketing teams supporting mobile part-time, and others use contract or freelance employees. One-third of marketers plan to hire more full-time mobile employees, and one-quarter plan to hire more contract mobile employees in the next six months…but marketers still rely primarily on agencies and part-timers.
Many firms are turning to their agencies to help them navigate this opportunity. Currently, marketers work with an average of three external agencies for mobile marketing. One-quarter of them use anywhere from four to 15 or more. And these agencies are only working on execution — the majority of companies are working with their traditional brand agency, or digital and mobile agencies, to help them incorporate mobile into their overall plans.
Some marketers are making acquisitions to quickly scale the mobile talent gaps. One of the most important strategic staffing decisions CIOs and CMOs will make this year is deciding how to meet their mobile development needs. Most companies have leaned on specialist firms and don’t have first-rate mobile development skills in-house. Now they must decide if that approach will cut it as smartphone and tablet platforms become as indispensable as the Web in engaging customers. The Financial Times decided that relying on a contractor wasn’t good enough and they acquired Web app developer Assanka.Walmart also acquired the 13-person mobile development firm Smart Society in 2012, as well as other mobile and social acquisitions including Kosmix and Grabble. These strategic mobile acquisitions by large marketers underscores the challenge large companies face in scaling mobile talent acquisition once the ROI case for mobile has been proven.
Where Does Your Company Stand?
Where is your company in terms of developing a mobile marketing strategy, and hiring/developing the talent required for sustained success? While this may feel like the early days of online marketing, the difference is the rate of acceleration in mobile advertising and m-commerce will be faster than any previous new media channel we have experienced. If you are behind the curve, as many companies are, it’s time to act now.
Blog Roundup: Did you catch these recent posts on our blog?
BLOG: Mobile Marketing 2013 Forum Recap – What You Need to Know!
The MMA-NY 2013 Forum filled the Marriott Marquis Hotel in NYC for 3 days, the eye-opening information, the program/content was excellent, and both the attendees and presenters confirmed MOBILE is rapidly becoming the next NEW media channel. These are exciting times for both the advertiser and consumer alike. …Read more
Career Announcements
Chief Marketing Officer
Managing Director, Alliance Sales Lead
Managing Director, Social Media Offering Lead
Managing Director, Investment Banking
Senior Executive – Financial Services
Leave a Reply