Overview
Organizations (marketers, media companies, agencies, and marketing technology providers) know that consumers’ attention is increasingly being drawn to their mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.), but most companies are still in the early stages of mobile marketing strategy development — and they face an uphill climb to evolve beyond basic mobile marketing campaigns to building the dedicated mobile marketing organizations and recruiting/developing the talent required for sustained future mobile marketing growth and success.
Central Issues – Mobile Adoption Outpacing Talent Acquisition
Consumer mobile adoption is outpacing mobile marketing talent investment. The central issue facing marketers is the rapid pace of consumer mobile adoption which is 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 a 2013 report from the CMO Council. 46% of marketers surveyed in the CMO Council study said they are either evaluating or reviewing the role of mobile in their organizations.
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 2013, more than two-thirds 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 daily and who download and use applications and consume news and information on their smartphones. Publicis’ 2013 “Tablets Rising” global study indicated tablets are the fastest scaling technology innovation ever…surpassing the rate consumer adoption of TVs, PCs, mobile phones, etc. The majority of CMOs and agencies now consider mobile devices the “first screen” for development of branding campaigns.
Marketers are behind in developing mobile organizational strategies. Most large marketers are spending less than $5 million on mobile marketing today, and 60% of them expect their budgets to increase significantly in 2014. However, the CMO Council’s study findings point to marketers treating mobile as a standalone channel instead of being incorporated into an overall digital marketing and branding strategy. Additionally, 47% of CMOs said they are not satisfied because of a lack of talent, ad formats, or resources to roll out mobile campaigns. The findings also point to mobile being used for more one-off campaigns versus being integrated into a brand’s overall marketing mix.
“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, Web site 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 of The CMO Council. Unfortunately, this strategic approach is lacking for a majority of marketers.
Mobile strategies are still young. More than one-third of marketers say their company has had a mobile strategy for less than 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 digital/mobile 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 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 CMOs and CTOs 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. In its report on the acquisition, FT CEO John Ridding said:
“This is a unique opportunity to bring talented and very creative software engineers with proven skills in emerging web technologies into our team. It will further boost our momentum in digital journalism, help us improve our development processes and allow us to maintain our edge in this strategically important area.”
Walmart also acquired the 13-person mobile development firm Smart Society, 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.
Summary
Mobile advertising is driving the growth of digital media spending at such a rapid rate that digital media (including mobile) is forecasted to exceed broadcast spending before 2018 (within the next 5 years). In order to support this, marketers and agencies need to hire, train/develop, and retain the mobile marketing talent required at both the strategic and tactical/technical development levels in order to maximize the effectiveness of increased mobile marketing investments. The winners and losers in closing this “talent gap” will define the next generation of “best in class” marketers.
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