• by Ray Schultz , April 1, 2021

U.S. marketers had a rough time of it last year, judging by a new study from Sitecore. 

Of the marketers polled, 59% wanted to quit at least once. And 79% found the period the most challenging of their careers, with 80% saying their responsibilities increased a great deal. 

That group clearly includes email marketers, given an increase in these tasks:

• Supporting customer acquisition — 47%
• New online or virtual services — 46%
• Social responsibilities/sustainability — 41%

All this was accompanied by internal and external stresses, including:

• Pressure from upper management to boost results — 47%
• Swift changes in strategy — 39%
• Unrealistic deadlines — 20%

Meanwhile, 79% of marketers had to fundamentally change their customer experience delivery strategy due to a tripling of the pre-COVID pace. 

On the positive side, 77% saw greater innovation and were able to use the emergency to build an advanced tech stack. And 81% feel more connected to their customers. 

However, an accompanying consumer survey shows that consumers have grown more demanding over the past 12 months:

For example, 70% will leave a site and choose another one if they can’t find what they need in just a few clicks. And, 65% have less patience with slow or poorly functioning sites. 

In addition, 42% are less loyal to the brands they shopped with since the start of the pandemic.

Consumers strongly or somewhat agree with these expectations:

• The overall experience in store and online should be the same in terms of service and brand identity — 90%
• Online stores need to be fully stocked, or I will move on — 80%
• Retailers that can get me my order in less than a day are particularly appealing to me — 75%
• I will navigate away from a site and choose an alternative if I can’t find what I want with just a few clicks — 70%
• Since the pandemic, I have less patience with slow or poorly functioning websites — 65%

“The digital customer behaviors we were expecting by 2030 arrived in 2020; not by the customer’s own choice, but driven by a world that needed to switch to digital-only engagement literally overnight to survive and thrive during the pandemic,” concludes Paige O’Neill, CMO, Sitecore. 

Working with research specialist Advanis, Sitecore surveyed more than 400 U.S. marketing professionals and 1,000 consumers.