Over the past few years, “mobile first” has become the new marketing imperative. However, few B2C marketers are good at executing this concept. More importantly, focusing solely on mobile-first doesn’t truly put mobile at the heart of the customer experience and business transformation.

Apple is celebrating the iPhone’s tenth anniversary this year, just as an entire generation of “mobile natives,” poised to rethink every engagement through a mobile lens, enters its teen years.  We continue to see skyrocketing mobile adoption, especially in emerging countries such as India, Nigeria, and South Africa, where the mobile share of web traffic is already close to 80%.  Mobile, playing a role similar to that of electricity in the first Industrial Revolution, is in the vanguard of a wave of change that enables new disruptive technologies to emerge. Indeed, mobile is already key to activating adjacent technologies like internet of things (IoT), augmented reality, and intelligent agents, and its role will continue to grow.

Despite this, most brands struggle to engage with consumers via mobile. Only 32% of marketers we surveyed agree that they have systematically integrated mobile into their marketing approach.

See below the four stages that Forrester has defined in the mobile maturity mind shift framework. We estimate that a majority of brands are still stuck at still in the early stages of mobile maturity. Though 45% of companies we surveyed – almost a 200% increase versus the previous year – have started down the customer experience path and share such a vision, very few of them think they have the resources, budget, and organization to fully make the shift.

For more information, clients can read our new report here: Mobile First Is Not Enough.