The week's up to snow good❄️| Xeno Pulse 51st Edition | 29th Jan

Good Friday afternoon,

Here's a friendly reminder for you to get out of your blanket if you haven't already. (or not, idk it's freaking cold in north India).

And to all the Mumbaikers out there, I hope you’re enjoying the sun. Anyhow, we’re back with the marktech and retail updates of the week. Get a hot cup of coffee and enjoy reading :)

In this edition:

1. The dangers of getting marketing personalisation wrong
2. How Apparel Brands Can Earn Loyalty During—and Despite—Covid
3. What really went behind the Amazon vs Reliance battle
4. 3 Marketing Supertrends For 2021... And The No-Hype Future Of Marketing Tech
5. Finding your target audience just became easy: Xeno’s AI audience selection is now live
   

PERSONALISED MARKETING

😨The dangers of getting marketing personalisation wrong

Personalisation requires businesses to get up close and personal with their customers.

And when they get too close, that can lead to problems. Here’s what can happen:

• A breach of trust: The truth is that incorrectly targeted ads or content recommendations do little to build trust and brand loyalty with customers.
• Funny—and frustrating: Customers are likely to not trust their brand when the content becomes irrelevant to them, consumers find irrelevant content not just funny—but annoying and quite frustrating.
• Keep privacy in mind: There’s a fine line between being personal and being outright creepy. Keep your consumers’ privacy top of mind, and always get consent to use their personal data.

Learn more about the dangers of going wrong here >

LOYALTY

😍How Apparel Brands Can Earn Loyalty During—and Despite—Covid

With the uncertainty of 2020 continuing to cast its shadow, those stores still in the game are embracing all they can in an effort to keep their customers loyal. For that, both relationship tips and loyalty marketing can go a long way.

As global markets become increasingly commoditized, adopting digital loyalty solutions is a key differentiator. While enabling brands to leverage participating consumers’ data to customize products, services and marketing campaigns, it also improves user experience by making it more seamless and secure.

Brands are building closer bonds with current customers using CRM (customer relationship management) systems and building out ecosystems that enhance user loyalty by improving service quality.

Apparel companies can “hyper-personalize” their marketing by using new technologies that are already being employed by other companies. For instance, Walgreens relaunched its customer loyalty program, allowing it to move its IT resources and on-premises applications to a cloud platform.

Learn more it here >

RETAIL

⚔️IT’S A WAR: What really went behind the Amazon vs Reliance battle

Earlier this year, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) announced that it had signed a deal with Kishore Biyani’s Future Group to acquire assets in its retail business for an amount of Rs 24,713 crore.

Soon after the deal was announced, Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon intervened. Amazon, which owns a minority stake in one of Future Group’s firms, has accused the Indian retailer of violating a contract when it agreed to sell its retail assets to Reliance.

The stakes are high for the two billionaires. And now Amazon.com Inc. has filed a petition in an Indian court seeking detention of Future Group’s founder.

Let’s wait to hear what the court decided till then read all about the fight for retail dominance between Amazon & Retail here >

INDUSTRY REPORT

🛒 3 Marketing Supertrends For 2021... And The No-Hype Future Of Marketing Tech

A global pandemic wiped out the air cover for hype cycle technologies and just maybe, left brands and marketers with a little more reality. A little more wisdom. So what’s left?

Holistic transformation of marketing in a digital-first world. Not one savior technology that will change everything and make all the difference. But a general, complete, full evolution of marketing that is digital first.

2021 marketing supertrends include:

• Digital transformation: 76% of marketing leaders say that digital transformation in marketing technology is their most critical focus for 2021.
• Empathy: Everyone who’s lived through 2020 knows why empathy matters in 2021.
• Everything else: Data lakes and customer data platforms and marketing automation and AI and AR and VR still remain to be relevant.

Read it here >

AI MARKETING

🌟Finding your target audience just became easy: Xeno’s AI audience selection is now live

Audience selection is the most important step in any marketing campaign. But it’s a lot of work!

We've heard a lot of marketers complain about the long tedious process of audience selection to send personalised campaigns. And why should they not? It's 2021 and things need to change. It's time to move on to the Next-Gen approach.

Here’s when Xeno’s AI Audience Selection comes to the rescue. You can now find your target audience in just one click allowing you to improve your campaign ROI by over 20%

Amazed? Check out the product details here >

🤗Brand & Marketing news:

Catch up with all the trends and brand updates of the week here:

• 9,849,938 Bernie memes? How did Bernie became the biggest meme of the year
• World's Richest Man Bought A Gift For His Dog. Then This Happened. Surge of Etsy
• The journey from US to Tenkasi, a remote village in Tamil Nadu: Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu conferred the Padma Shri Award
• Hike shuts messaging app, shifts focus to new social offerings

And before we part our ways, I just wanted to share my highlight of the week. The entire Xeno team's effort to create an impact for our partner retailers just got covered by YourStory Media. Read it here >

That’s all for today. Have a great weekend😎