By Josh Herman

Selling the virtues of a well thought-out mobile marketing program couldn't be easier.

The crushing peer pressure has made every senior marketing executive already aware that they need to have one. Thus, most marketing executives have already been exposed or over-exposed to a whole tapestry of PowerPoints from a variety of technology providers and agencies, each with their own nuanced approach to what "the mobile life of their customers" should look like.

But recently I heard the most refreshingly candid question from a marketing vice president regarding the stricture in front of their mobile marketing vision. It wasn't about the technology. It wasn't about their mobile strategy. It wasn't about measurements and metrics.

It was about finding a home for their mobile marketing "department" when one doesn't technically exist yet.

She said, "I'm past the ?why' and the ?how' of mobile marketing. I'm there. But organizationally ?who' am I supposed to assign this to? It's not like I've got idle staff looking for more work to do. And I don't know if it's going to require incremental FTEs or how many.'"

This specific question surfaces frequently, albeit indirectly, all the time and mobile marketing seems to show up and even wander around organization charts from one company to the next.

Sometimes the CRM team gets it. Sometimes the email marketing team gets it or the direct or database marketing team. Sometimes it's been punted over to the advertising agency even when it has nothing to do with advertising.

What this vice president was wise enough to know is that ad hoc, anecdotal mobile marketing programs aren't going to deliver what the chief marketing officer is looking for.

The CMO doesn't want another siloed Tower of Babel called mobile marketing.

Consumer engagement has to work in concert with all touch points, especially the more personal mobile channel.

There's got to be an organizational roadmap for mobile marketing, as important as a technology roadmap, so that it becomes a sustainable and consistent reflection of the brand experience for consumers.

The key to making the right decision is being honest about your mobile marketing maturity. Most of the time companies fall into three broad phases of mobile maturity.

1) Starting and learning
2) Expanding, improving and stabilizing
3) Optimizing and integrating

And as you can imagine, there is a logical resources balancing act that maps into each phase.

How quickly you take the mobile marketing maturity escalator up depends on recognizing where you are starting from and having a clear vision for what a fully integrated mobile marketing experience looks like to the consumers of your brand.

Traveling that distance gracefully can bring smiles from consumers to CMOs.

The answer for this particular vice president of marketing was acknowledging that they were still in the starting and learning phase and not yet ready to commit internal FTEs who lacked mobile experience and expertise.

She didn't want to over-burden and risk the performance quality of the CRM team or the email team and she didn't want to set them up for failure by asking them to be instant masters of mobile marketing.

So in this phase, the balance of resources will be coming from external experts until which time her program's mobile maturity has demonstrated its clear ROI and justification for additional internal resources.

Your story may be different or you may be at a different step on the path to the next phase of mobile maturity.

But rest assured, done right, getting there is fun for the consumer, fun for your organization, and fun for your bottom line.

Don't believe me? Kiss my twitter. OK, well at least send me an email. I can do both from my mobile device. I'm interested to know what you think your mobile maturity is and whether there is consensus in your company about it.

Josh Herman is global multichannel marketing innovation leader at Acxiom Corp., Potomac, MD. Reach him at .