Forrester just released a new report on mobile and new technology priorities for marketers, based on our latest global mobile executive survey.

We found out that marketers:

  • Fail to deliver on foundational mobile experiences. Consumers’ expectations of a brand’s mobile experience have never been higher. And yet, 58% of marketers agree that their mobile services are nearly identical to their desktop services. The end result? A cumbersome scaled down version of a PC experience lacking context and frustrating consumers. Only 39% of marketers we surveyed systematically integrate into their mobile approach.
  • Hyper-focus on emerging consumer-facing technologies. Marketers are easily lured by the hype around emerging technologies. For example, the percentage of B2C marketing decision-makers who already use or plan to pilot or launch chatbots has increased from an already high 45% in 2016 to 68% in 2017, despite weak consumer penetration and even weaker user experiences.

Marketers must fix their mobile basics to make the most of adjacent technologies like conversational interfaces, intelligent agents, AR/VR or image recognition. In particular, they should:

  • Expand their perception of mobile’s role. Decision-makers should stop thinking of smartphones as just a device and more as the brain powering and orchestrating new experiences in an increasingly connected world. Mobile redefines your brand experience. However, 53 percent of marketers we surveyed are still not using mobile to transform their overall customer experience.
  • Invest strategically in-house to orchestrate external partners. Investing in mobile resources will give you the expertise you need to internalize strategic deployments and facilitate the orchestration with external partners helping you implement a broader digital transformation. Because mobile is at the crossroads of brand activation and technology evolution, it will increase the battle between consultancies trying to pitch marketers and agencies increasing trying to convince technology folks. CMOs and their teams should elevate the transformational role of mobile to the board and have a voice in the selection process for the most relevant digital experience service providers.
  • Automate mobile moments with scale and speed. Mobile messaging tactics are key to fulfilling customer expectations in the mobile moment. But too few marketers are using the different flavors of mobile messaging tactics today (see Figure below). It is critical to first identify how mobile moments improve your customer journey and then automate these moments at scale and with speed to be able to deliver in almost real-time.

Mobile Messaging

  • Revisit their KPIs to increase mobile’s share in the marketing mix. Forget about cost per thousands (CPMs) or click-through rates (CTRs) to compare mobile ad effectiveness and efficiency to other channels. Instead develop a clear learning agenda and road map to reconcile differences across measurement approaches and better align data from top down (Marketing Mix Modelling) and bottom up (Multi Touch Attribution) tools.

Clients can access the full report here: 2018 Mobile And New Technology Priorities For Marketers