3strongviewStrongView, a leading provider of email marketing and cross-channel marketing solutions, recently announced the results of its StrongView Mobile Marketing Survey 2013 that showed that mobile marketing adoption increased 22% over the past year and is now leveraged by more than half of all businesses with a strong emphasis on mobile websites, mobile apps and mobile-optimized email.

Even with the prevalence of mobile devices, and smartphone adoption passing the halfway mark in the United States, mobile marketing adoption only reached 56%, a 22% increase over the past year. Despite tempered annual growth, more than 80% of those businesses not conducting mobile marketing plan to do so sometime in the future – half of those in the next 12 months.

The top three challenges impeding growth continue to be lack of strategy, resources and budget.

"It's clear that the vast majority of businesses understand the value of using mobile marketing to drive customer engagement and lifetime value, but they are struggling to implement sophisticated, cross-channel approaches that can fully leverage the strengths of this emerging channel," said Katrina Conn, vice president of marketing services, StrongView. "Driving real, measurable results from mobile marketing comes down to having the right strategy and tools, and that's why we work closely with our enterprise clients to implement an integrated suite of mobile marketing programs that closely aligns to their business and goals", she added.

Reasons for companies not yet using mobile marketing

strongview1

Highlights of the global survey

  • 56% have adopted mobile marketing; 50% of those have been doing it for 12 months or less;
  • 43% cite lack of strategy as biggest barrier to adoption, followed by lack of resources (21%);
  • 56% have not integrated mobile marketing into cross-channel, lifecycle marketing programs
  • ·Mobile websites (77%), apps (60%) and mobile-optimized email (49%) are most popular forms;
  • 57% reported increased mobile marketing budgets for past 12 months; only 3% saw a decrease;
  • 67% expect their budget to increase in the next 12 months.

Mobile marketing is focused on user experience and apps

Two of the top three mobile marketing programs are directly related to improving the mobile experience of two more established channels – web and email.

77% of businesses are optimizing their websites for mobile audiences, and another 49% are mobile-optimizing their email campaigns.

At 60% adoption, mobile apps remain the second most popular form of mobile marketing year over year, but mobile-optimized email secured the third spot, edging out QR codes (41%), which fell to fifth place behind mobile advertising (42%).

Companies already using mobile marketing: Type of marketing used

strongview2

Mobile marketing programs lack integration with other channels

The survey results show that marketers are largely adopting mobile marketing in a siloed fashion. While 55% have done some level of coordination between email marketing and mobile marketing programs, it is largely limited to mobile optimized landing pages (68%) and email templates (62%). Only 40% are using email to capture mobile numbers for SMS programs, which is twice as much as those using mobile to capture email addresses (20%). Furthermore, only 32% of respondents are using mobile in cross-channel lifecycle marketing programs, and only 25% are using mobile response data to optimize offers in other channels.

Lack of strategy remains the top inhibitor of mobile marketing adoption

When it comes to the 44% of businesses that aren't conducting mobile marketing, the inability to determine the right strategy dwarfs all other obstacles. At 43%, lack of strategy was reported more than two times that of any other reason. Lack of resources/staff (21%) and funding/budget (12%) round out the top three; 14% reported that it wasn't a fit for their business.

For a full copy of the survey and results, visit: http://www.strongview.com/mobilesurvey2013

The “StrongView Mobile Marketing Survey 2013” was conducted in conjunction with SurveyMonkey. The poll, which gathered feedback from 745 business executives in a wide range of industries, was conducted from May 20 - 31, 2013.

By MediaBUZZ