Mobile is Important, so Why Are Marketers Ignoring it?

To many, the above question will seem a little strange.

‘The importance of mobile’ has been on the digital industry’s lips for longer than most can remember. In fact, we’re now at a point where for many in the digital space designing for mobile has become a given. So the idea that marketing and communication departments are missing mobile will come as a surprise to many.

But according to the recent Marketing Perspectives report, ‘only 23% of marketers thought [mobile] was an important channel’, and when marketers rated channels by importance mobile finished 10th on the list out of a possible 15. Despite this though, ‘websites’ topped the chart, sitting at number one.

Two things surprised us with these statistics:
1) That marketers ranked mobile so low
2) That there was such a huge gap between ‘mobile’ and ‘websites’

In the UK an average of 20% of website traffic comes from a smartphone or tablet and by 2014 this figure is predicted to double. Despite this though, ‘people are very wary to put any budget at all towards mobile strategy’ says Dr Charles Randall. Given the statistics, the wariness to invest in mobile despite the rapidly increasing user demand is difficult to understand.

Websites, of course, are all about communicating. Whatever your industry your website will be a means from which to present information to your target audience, be it publications, blog posts, videos or simply your brand image. It’s been said many times that ‘content is king’, but making content accessible is just as important. If reading that research paper involves users having to pinch, scroll and zoom on their smartphones, then it figures that users are probably not going to stay reading for very long.

‘Users have very little patience and even less so on small mobile screens. Unless you focus your design, users will simply give up on your product before they even know what it can do’ 

Marcos Lara

Marketers already acknowledge the importance of a website in communicating to their customers. However as users increasingly turn to their mobile devices to access the internet, it is staggering to continue to see such disparity existing between the perceived importance of websites and mobile.

In the upcoming weeks, we want to investigate why this gap in priority exists and we want to hear your thoughts. Vote on our poll and leave your comments below. We want to provide answers, uncover limitations and even work on some solutions, so watch this space.