February 2025

Award-winning mixologist Alba Huerta believes that cocktails are more than just drinks — they are stories in a glass.

Huerta, who was born in Mexico and raised in Texas, is the bartender and owner of Julep in Houston. She has spent more than a decade shaping the country’s cocktail culture, winning countless awards and creating more than 110 cocktails. As a result, she has gained international acclaim for her bartending skills.

From the very first drink she crafted in 1998, Huerta understood that bartending was about more than mixing ingredients. She immediately loved the unique experiences she could give her customers.

Related: His ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’-Themed Pop-Up Restaurants Bring the Classic Video Game to Life — and Feature the Beloved Character’s Favorite Food

For Huerta, the process of creating a cocktail is a deeply personal and collaborative experience. “By the time we get to an iteration of a cocktail that we think is exemplary, that drink has been made 20-30 times,” she says.

The cocktail evolves through input from her entire team. Creative influences can come from seasonal ingredients or even pop culture, but each drink is one of a kind. To Huerta, this collaboration is the true nature of hospitality. It’s about relationships. You share part of your story and interests with the guests to see what they will do with it. Sometimes, they change things to make it their own.

That’s what makes it fun and meaningful. You can build a unique bond with a customer over something as simple yet complex as a carefully crafted drink.

Related: This NYC Man Is Revitalizing the Famous Bar From ‘Goodfellas’ As It Approaches Its 200th Anniversary

Lessons in bar ownership

Julep just celebrated its 10th year in Huerta’s hands. The challenges of building and maintaining a business, especially after the pandemic, have taught her many lessons.

Here are four key lessons Huerta shares from her decade as a bar owner:

• Details matter. For Huerta, the smallest details are what create memorable experiences. “The space, the lighting, the paper the menus are printed on, the way you name your drinks so that your guests can navigate the menu more easily,” she explains. Every element and touchpoint contributes to the guest’s experience.
• Community is everything. Huerta is passionate about the power of community, not just in business but in life. She credits much of her success to the support of her local community and urges other entrepreneurs to build meaningful connections. For anyone looking to change careers, build something new or do anything else, the support of a community will help them think bigger and more creatively.
• Ask for help when you need it. No one wins alone. Stop thinking you need to do it all yourself. Asking for help will equip you to do greater things. Huerta’s advice is as much about collaboration as it is about asking for help from those ahead of you. Take mentoring as often as you can.
• Share what you’ve learned. Huerta is deeply committed to helping others in the hospitality industry. She believes you should always take what you’ve learned and hand it to the people coming up behind you. The tools available now make it much easier to create a brand or business than it was even a decade ago. Use every tool and share every lesson.

Whether crafting a signature cocktail or offering a word of advice to a fellow business owner, Huerta’s impact is undeniable.

She has become an important influence on cocktail culture worldwide, but her heart for hospitality is about people. The relationships she builds and the memories she makes for everyone she meets make it all worthwhile.

“I never imagined I would open this bar twice,” she admits, noting how the world has changed in recent years. Despite these hurdles, her dedication to the craft and community has kept Julep thriving.

Related: Embracing Fear Fueled this Michelin-Rated Chef’s Comeback

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Related: How These Entrepreneurs Turned a Seasonal Venue Into a Nightlife Powerhouse

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I am competitive, and I hate to lose. When I feel like someone is going to be better than me at something, it flips a switch somewhere deep inside of me and puts me into overdrive.

This isn’t limited to the work I do at FutureFund, my free fundraising platform for K-12 school groups. I want to be the best athlete, coach, family man and software engineer that I can be. And for the most part, this works. It motivates me to strive for excellence and keep challenging myself instead of becoming too comfortable and stagnating.

But the same tendency that drives me to excel at these things can sometimes become counterproductive. My dislike of losing is actually so strong that I often hate playing board games. As you can imagine, that can really put a damper on family game night if I don’t keep it in check.

Lots of people in tech are like this because it’s a competitive landscape. Maybe it’s the same for you: anything you do, you have to do 100% — and because you put 100% of yourself into something, it’s almost impossible for your success or failure not to feel like a reflection of who you are. Like me, you have a brand, and that brand is: when you do something, you will succeed.

The trick is to keep your sense of competition healthy so that it serves your work and personal goals instead of getting in your way. Here’s how I do it — and how you can, too.

Related: Stop Bossing Your Team Around — How Coaching Can Remove Your Blind Spots and Transform Your Leadership Style

The way you respond to competition is a choice

Not everyone responds to competition in the same way. People tend to fall into one of two groups when they witness someone else succeeding at a goal they have for themselves.

The first group tries to sabotage the success they see in others. They ask how they can shift their competition’s reputation so that it’s negative. This is more commonly accepted than you might assume. We tend to look down on brands who run obvious smear campaigns against their rivals, but lots of companies get away with writing press releases that favorably compare their products or services to those of their biggest competitors.

The second group tries to improve themselves so they can match and surpass the success they see others experiencing. They become motivated to better themselves instead of casting aspersions on their rivals. This approach can feel like a lot more work, but I have found that it’s also frequently much more rewarding.

The first group’s approach might work at first — but there are obvious risks. Not only can this blow back on you if you’re too heavy-handed, but it can also provoke your rivals and motivate them to work harder against you than they normally would have. But the biggest problem is that focusing on others doesn’t do anything to improve your abilities.

The second group’s approach requires you to be unflinchingly honest with yourself and your team about your strengths and weaknesses, which can be challenging at first. But it also pays dividends. You learn where to invest your time and effort for maximum gains. You become more efficient and less likely to blame others for your mistakes, and you ultimately get closer to becoming the best you can be at what you’re doing.

Related: Why You Have to Let People Fail Now So They Can Succeed Later

Wanting to win vs. hating to lose

Once you’ve chosen to motivate yourself instead of tearing down your competitors, the next question is how to do it. Here’s one way to think about it that’s always helped me:

It’s not just about wanting to win; it’s about hating to lose. If you’re anything like me, the disappointment of losing is usually stronger for you than the joy of winning.

This doesn’t permit you to be a sore loser on those occasions when it inevitably does happen — you don’t want to ruin family game night. But making it a priority to avoid unfavorable outcomes is often helpful because it makes you more likely to fix the kinds of things that people might let slide if they’re too focused on their wins.

One of FutureFund’s major competitors ultimately went out of business because their support team routinely took weeks to get back to people. This issue would have been easy to correct, but they let it become their Achilles heel. Although it might not have felt important enough for them to fix, it turned out to be important for their users.

So we decided that one of our non-negotiables would be to answer support tickets in a reasonable amount of time — a couple of hours or less. That was easy to commit to, but it had a profoundly positive impact on our success.

Think about this in the context of your startup. Staying competitive means celebrating your wins, but never letting yourself be complacent about where there’s room for improvement.

Related: 4 Coaching Stages Every Leader Should Master to Help Others Grow

You define what winning is

Finally, you need a healthy way to quantify and acknowledge your wins. That can be difficult because, in business, it’s not always clear who’s winning. There are no universal goalposts that everyone can see.

Here’s my rule: competition is healthy when you decide what success looks like instead of letting others do it. Measure your progress by how far you’ve come in relation to the goals you’ve set instead of letting your competitors control the narrative and always being one step behind them.

Success, for me, is about being a little better than I was the day before. When you’re in a startup, your product won’t be perfect at first — or maybe ever. But you work to make sure it’s better today than it was last month — or last week, or yesterday. This way, you can at least make sure you’re heading in the right direction.

If you’ve chosen your mission carefully, this kind of progress becomes a much better benchmark for success than what some other company is doing. You can read more about that in my next article below:

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman became a billionaire when Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion in cash, and he has also made his fortune on high-return investments in more than 80 tech startups, including Airbnb, Groupon, and Flickr. He famously made $111 million from his initial $37,500 investment in Facebook.

Now Hoffman is turning his attention to AI in healthcare with a new startup he introduced last week with co-founder Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee: Manas AI. And this time Hoffman has deeper hopes than just a high return on investment — he wants to help cure cancer.

Manas is bringing AI to some of the world’s top drug development scientists to deepen their expertise and speed up the rate at which new drugs are discovered. The startup aims to unite researchers with advanced AI systems to more quickly figure out how potentially life-saving drugs could interact with the human body.

Related: LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman: To Scale, Do Things That Don’t Scale

Manas is initially turning its attention to aggressive cancers like breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma. Its long-term vision is to fundamentally change how the industry discovers and develops new medicines.

“Most people have had friends, family members, etc., who’ve died from cancer or had serious cancer problems,” Hoffman told CNBC on Monday. “If we can make a huge difference on this, and this is the kind of thing that AI can make a huge difference in, it’s the kind of reason why AI can be great for humanity.”

^{Reid Hoffman The Midway SF on December 05, 2023, in San Francisco, California. Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED}

The startup has raised $24.6 million in seed funding so far, with Hoffman leading the funding round with venture capital firm General Catalyst. It will operate its AI systems in data centers owned by Microsoft.

Related: Reid Hoffman: To Successfully Grow A Business, You Must ‘Expect Chaos’

Mukherjee is a Columbia University professor and author of “The Emperor of All Maladies,” a book about cancer. In 2016, he helped found Vor BioPharma, a cell engineering company, and in 2021 he founded Myeloid Therapeutics, a cancer therapy startup.

Manas currently has four employees including Mukherjee and Hoffman, with Hoffman saying he serves as the company’s “AI guy” and Mukherjee as the “bio guy.” Manas’ goal is to unite the two fields.

“It isn’t just the best of science and it isn’t just the best of AI, because either of those two [is] insufficient,” Hoffman told CNBC. “You need to put those two together.”

The AI healthcare sector saw substantial investments in 2024. According to PitchBook, investors poured $10.5 billion into 511 healthcare AI deals in 2024. Cancer screening AI startup Freenome raised the most money out of the group with a $254 million Series F in February 2024.

In today’s digital world, video content has become a key element for businesses trying to boost their online visibility and engage with their audience. Whether it’s a 15-second social media clip or an extensive podcast, the right video format can be a game-changer for your brand’s online presence.

However, not all video formats are suitable for every business. Understanding which formats align with your goals — and ensuring your team is skilled in video creation and editing — is key to leveraging their full potential.

At Miracamp, we have experienced this growing need among business owners to train their teams to master content creation and marketing. We had to adapt our curriculum to answer these needs — to cover the different types of videos that are relevant for the different types of businesses.

Here are six video formats you should consider to maximize your business visibility online organically.

Related: Marketing With Video: The Definitive Guide

1. Podcasts

Main platforms: YouTube

Podcasts, which were once primarily audio-based, are now performing even better in video formats. Adding a visual element to your podcast not only boosts engagement on platforms like YouTube but also enables you to repurpose clips for social media. The conversational tone of podcasts is perfect for showcasing expertise, interviewing industry leaders and sharing behind-the-scenes stories, making you and your content more relatable to viewers.

To create compelling podcast videos, ensure you have a professional video setup and high-quality audio that complement the content. For businesses in knowledge-heavy industries — such as tech, finance or education — podcasts are an excellent way to establish thought leadership and foster trust.

Main advantages: Build thought leadership and strengthen connections with your audience and ecosystem.

2. Tutorials

Main platforms: YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn

If you are operating in a software-intensive (or complex equipment) ecosystem, such as an educational institution, a service/consulting provider or a software company, you should consider creating tutorials.

Tutorials are a very strong tool for businesses that want to demonstrate their expertise and provide value. By answering frequently asked questions and fixing problems, tutorials — whether they are comprehensive guides on how to use a product, recipe or software — allow companies to communicate with their audience. To make the information easier to understand, break each process down into manageable chunks and add visual aids like graphics, close-ups and captions.

Remember that tutorials can be short-form videos for Instagram or TikTok, leveraging the power of algorithms to meet the growing demand for “snackable” content.

Main advantages: Educates your audience while establishing your expertise — also leveraging algorithms to maximize your visibility.

3. News and industry insights

Main platforms: LinkedIn, X, Instagram

Sharing news and industry insights keeps your audience informed and positions your business as a thought leader. Whether it’s a summary of the latest trends in a short video, a breakdown of complex topics or an analysis of recent events, this format resonates with professionals seeking reliable information while also enhancing engagement and reactions.

To excel, focus on presenting clear, concise and well-researched content. Incorporating graphics, statistics and expert commentary adds credibility. This format is particularly effective for B2B companies and industries like finance, technology or media, where staying informed is critical.

Main advantages: Positions the business as an authority in its field and fosters engagement among a highly qualified audience.

Related: How To Create Engaging Video Content for Your Brand

4. Webinars

Main platforms: Dedicated webinar platforms, YouTube Live, LinkedIn

Webinars are a proven format for generating high-quality leads and educating an audience on complex topics. A well-executed webinar allows businesses to delve deep into subjects relevant to their target market, providing value while subtly promoting their products or services.

For your webinar to shine, preparation is essential. Focus on creating visually engaging slides, rehearsing your script and ensuring a seamless technical experience. Adding interactive elements, such as polls or Q&A sessions, can further captivate your audience. Webinars work exceptionally well for businesses looking to showcase expertise, train customers or launch new products (SaaS companies, consulting or training organizations).

Main advantages: Educates the audience at limited efforts, gives you the ability to interact with a broad audience and fosters a community feeling.

5. Inspirational and motivational short formats

Main platforms: Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn

Videos that are brief and inspirational are very good at connecting with viewers. This style establishes an emotional bond with your viewers, whether it’s a 30-second video about conquering obstacles or an intimate account of your business’s expansion.

Make sure these videos are relatable, succinct and visually appealing to maximize their impact. To draw attention, use engaging captions, upbeat music and genuine narratives. Brands in coaching, wellness or any other industry that wants to motivate people to take action will find this approach very effective.

Main advantages: Drives emotional connection and engagement — and also has a potential for virality.

6. Fun or hooking content

Main platforms: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts

Captivating content relies on strong hooks and visually compelling elements to grab the audience’s attention within the first few seconds. The fast-paced nature of this format is ideal for platforms that cater to short attention spans, such as TikTok or Instagram Reels.

Humor has always been a powerful tool for connection, and memes take it to the next level in today’s digital culture. Businesses that embrace absurd or funny content stand out in the crowded social media landscape. When done right, this format fosters relatability and engagement, especially for consumer brands.

Main advantages: Grabs attention and increases engagement — also highly shareable and great for viral potential.

Related: What Are the Secrets to Creating Social Media-Friendly Videos That Sell? Here Are 5 Answers.

Video content is not just a trend — it’s a cornerstone of modern marketing. By choosing the right formats and tailoring them to your business’s goals and audience, you can achieve significant growth in visibility and engagement. Some of our students achieved remarkable results in just four weeks by posting every two days.

Success hinges on the quality of your execution. Whether you have an in-house team or partner with skilled video professionals, the effort invested in video content will pay dividends in building trust, driving traffic and enhancing your brand’s presence.

The time to leverage video’s potential is now — are you ready to tell your story?

Compare your personal inbox with your professional email if you want evidence that business owners and professionals are commonly targeted by cybercriminals. Malware, phishing schemes, and even ads have the potential to compromise the security of a business and lead to an information breach. It’s frustrating, but it’s a simple problem to address.

With a tool like AdGuard on your side, you can enhance your privacy, block ads, protect against malware, and more. Normally $169, you can now get a lifetime subscription to AdGuard for nine devices on sale for $19.97.

What can AdGuard do?

AdGuard gives business owners the tools to protect their data. In some cases, that simply means blocking all ads, which gets rid of a common frustration and a potential vehicle for malware or phishing scams. AdGuard uses advanced filtering technology to remove pop-ups, banners, and video ads. That creates a smoother browsing experience while also reducing the risk of exposure to malicious content.

Beyond ad-blocking, AdGuard strengthens your online security by preventing access to harmful websites and blocking trackers that collect browsing data. This helps protect sensitive business information from potential breaches.

The built-in parental control feature also allows users to restrict access to inappropriate content, making it a useful tool for businesses managing shared devices or family-use computers.

AdGuard is compatible with Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, so you don’t need separate software for different types of devices. With the Family Plan, users can protect up to nine devices with a single lifetime license. No need to budget for another monthly expense.

Once installed, AdGuard runs in the background without slowing down device performance. It works with all major browsers and can be customized with additional filters to tailor the level of protection to individual needs.

Use code GUARD20 by February 23 at 11:59 p.m. PT to get a lifetime subscription to the AdGuard Family Plan for $19.97.

AdGuard Family Plan: Lifetime Subscription – $19.97

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StackSocial prices subject to change.

The TikTok ban may have lasted less than a day, but it left behind an important question: Should we be spending so much of our time on social media? Many entrepreneurs and business professionals saw it as a wake-up call—not to delete social media but to spend more time on self-growth.

You don’t have to go back to school or bury your nose in books when apps like Headway exist. Imagine being able to turn on a mini-podcast on your way to work or read the key points of best-selling nonfiction titles over your lunch break. Lifetime subscriptions are $59.99 here with our unbeatable offer (reg. $299.95).

Replace doomscrolling with microlearning

Most of us can admit to spending a little too much time on social media, probably because it’s designed to be addicting. But a fun fact: so is Headway. With reads like trending autobiographies, CEO success stories, and career growth tips that only take 15 minutes, you’ll keep coming back for more.

Headway gets to know what you like, recommending your next read and keeping things you probably won’t far away. If you ever don’t feel like picking what to read next, try taking a curated challenge like “Success” or “Wealth.”

There’s a lot more to explore on the Headway app, like daily microlearning sessions, an intelligence-type test, and a yearly recap that celebrates how much you’ve learned. With a lifetime subscription, you never have to worry about recurring fees sneaking up on you.

You can get a lifetime subscription to this book summary app for $59.99 (reg. $299.95). You won’t find a better price anywhere else.

Headway Premium: Lifetime Subscription – $59.99

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StackSocial prices subject to change.

I travel a lot for my job, and although there are many downsides to being on the road, there is one significant benefit: it gives me time to think.

When you travel — particularly when you’re solo, as I oftentimes am — you have a lot of time to think. In the Uber. In security. Walking through the airport. Waiting for your flight. Being on your flight. Doing the reverse at your destination. Some people listen to music or podcasts during this downtime, and there are occasions when I do the same. But most of the time, I’m thinking. What are my thoughts?

Same as you, if you’re a business owner. I’m thinking about things going on in my life and my company. A new product we’re working on. A sales campaign I want to try. A challenging client situation. A difficult employee. Whether the Phillies should trade Alec Bohm. Why the guy sitting next to me is wearing sandals. Lots of thoughts are going through my little, silly, pathetic mind. But that’s fine. Thinking is good. And when I return from a trip, I usually have new ideas, different approaches to a problem — brilliant thoughts to share.

When I travel, I’m not on the phone as much as when I’m in the office. I’m also not sending as many emails or attending as many meetings. I’m doing less, but actually, I’m doing more.

Back in my office the next day, I’m completing tasks. I’m reviewing contracts. I’m working on a proposal. I’m on Zoom. I’m messaging an employee. I’m calling a contractor. I’m running to a client meeting. I’m doing a lot. But am I doing the right things? Am I really contributing to the long-term profitability and growth of my business? Am I acting or just reacting? I think you know the answer.

As business owners, we all spend too much time doing too many irrelevant things instead of what’s really important: thinking. Thinking about the future. Thinking about how to make our customers delighted, our products better, our employees happier. We should be thinking about the economy, regulations and new laws that may affect our business and how we’re going to deal with them. We should be thinking of our cash flow, our investments and how to increase the value of our businesses. But what about all the daily minutiae we have to deal with? I need to do less of them. So, I accomplish more.

Here are some actions I’m going to take this year so that I can accomplish more by doing less.

Related: 10 Growth Strategies Every Business Owner Should Know

Outsource to experts

I should not be doing my own payroll, creating quotes, researching issues or sending out bulk emails. This year, I’ll outsource these tasks. I’ll pay accountants, salespeople and outside marketers to do this for me. This will save me hours of time. And yes, it will cost, but the cost-benefit ratio will be much higher.

Force myself to get out more

I will leave my desk, play squash or ride my bike in the middle of the day, visit more clients, and have lunch with people I should’ve had lunch with years ago. The more I’m out, the more I leave my business to be run by my talented people, and the more time I will have to think about the business and how to scale it.

Join a CEO group

There are many great organizations around the country that assemble local groups of CEOs and business owners who regularly get together to discuss their businesses. They discuss their problems, share their financial information, offer guidance and ask for help. If I were to take the time to be with them and listen to what they have to say, I would benefit and grow. I may even have a few thoughts to help them, too.

Follow the 80/20 rule

It is amazing to me how much time I spend on clients that generate so little profit. Like many, I just want to please people. I realize that every client is important, and I want a client paying me $100 to be just as satisfied as a client paying me $10,000. But come on, does that really make sense? This year, I’m going to spend less time agonizing over small, marginally profitable accounts and focus on the clients who are truly the most valuable to my business. I’m not going to ignore the smaller clients. But I’m going to have a limit as to how much time I’m going to spend on them. I’ll do the same with our products and services. Do we need to have so many? Can we get more done with fewer offerings?

Related: 5 Innovative Ways to Create Growth Opportunities for Your Employees

Finally, I’m going to lean more into tech this year

I will look at every task I perform during the day — responding to emails, following up on opportunities, sending bulk messages, attending meetings, reviewing invoices, and writing proposals — and ask myself how this can be done quicker with technology. My company uses a great CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software application that comes with many workflow and automation features that are beginning to leverage AI, all designed to get more things done in less time. I will speak frequently to this vendor and ask how I can be doing things quicker and better with their software.

2025 is when I will do less. Less busy work. Less micromanaging. Less detailed tasks. That’s what my smartest clients do: they make the time to think. They accomplish more by doing less.

So, you’re in the market for a new laptop. Can we convince you to buy a refurbished one instead? While they don’t have all the latest features, you can save hundreds of dollars, help the environment, and still get a near-mint device.

Take a look at this 13.3-inch MacBook Air in grade “A” condition. Instead of paying its original $999 retail price, you can grab one for only $229.97 with free shipping. The catch? We have an extremely limited number available and expect them to sell out fast.

What you need to know

The MacBook Air is one of the greatest laptops for everyday tasks. Even though this model is a few years old, Apple makes their devices so far ahead of their time that you’ll have fast enough processing to run essential apps like Microsoft Office and multitask.

Buying a refurbished MacBook Air isn’t the same as buying a used one from a friend. However, there are a few reasons why the price is discounted by 76%, like:

• The outside of the laptop may show light signs of wear
• You’ll have a minimum of 80% battery health
• The MacBook only updates to macOS Monterey

If you experience any issues, your purchase is backed by a 90-day parts and labor warranty. This means the components are eligible for replacement during that window.

These affordable MacBook Airs won’t last long at $229.97 with free shipping (reg. $999)—get yours ASAP.

Apple MacBook Air 13.3″ (2017) 1.8GHz i5 8GB RAM 128GB SSD Silver (Refurbished) – $229.97

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StackSocial prices subject to change.

Acquiring new customers has always been quite a challenge, and it’s getting more and more expensive and time-consuming in the realities of modern competition. Meanwhile, the main profits for businesses often come from repeat purchases.

While the average customer retention rate across all industries hovers around 75.5%, businesses should strive for higher rates, as studies have shown that repeat customers spend significantly more — often three times as much — compared to one-time shoppers.

In this article, I want to share the key moments to consider when striving to retain and grow the customer base.

1. Customer experience

Improving customer experience can turn one-time shoppers into loyal patrons, making it one of the most effective strategies for long-term growth. A 1% increase in customer acquisition leads to a 3.3% revenue increase, while a similar growth in customer retention pays off a 7% income growth.

Apple’s customer satisfaction and loyalty have been continuously growing. A brand’s attention to detail extends beyond the products themselves — starting from the packaging and ending with stores and design. For instance, they have a packaging designer who only works on evaluating prototype boxes. It transforms the act of opening an Apple product into a sensory experience, reinforcing the brand’s commitment to design and quality.

Everything that is done by Apple follows the philosophy that “details matter, and it’s worth waiting to get it right.” Thus, they focus on selling an experience rather than just a product.

Related: Understanding CAC: The Cornerstone of Business Economics

2. Personalization

Personalization is all about building stronger connections between customers and businesses, which translates into increased engagement, loyalty, and revenue. McKinsey research proves that 71% of consumers crave personalized interactions with brands, and companies that excel at offering such experiences enjoy 40% higher revenue growth than their competitors.

Spotify’s special playlists are a great example of how companies can use personal data to create new engaging experiences. For instance, their “Blend” playlist combines the listening habits of two users to create a unique mix that reflects the diverse music tastes of two close people.

This feature increased engagement rates and the average time spent in the mobile app. And it’s not just about the personalization itself — it also added an interactive social element to music discovery.

3. Loyalty programs

Effective loyalty programs are another tool for increasing repeat purchases and driving sustainable growth. 81% of consumers are more likely to return to brands that offer loyalty programs, with members spending 12-18% more annually than non-members.

Amazon Prime Day is an annual two-day shopping event for Prime members, featuring great discounts from top brands and small businesses, driving billions of dollars in sales. This event only proves the power of limited-time offers, altogether with the ‘chosen one’ status.

According to Numerator, 98% of attendees knew it was Prime Day before shopping, and just over half (53%) said Prime Day was their main reason for shopping. As a result, independent sellers sold more than 200 million items, mostly from small and medium-sized businesses.

4. Promotions and discounts

Promotions and discounts not only attract new customers but also create a sense of urgency, encouraging repeat purchases. According to RetailMeNot, 80% of consumers are more likely to make their first purchase from a new brand if offered a discount, and 68% are more likely to return after receiving a personalized offer.

Dunkin’ Donuts uses data from its Perks program to offer personalized promotions based on individual purchase history, preferences, location, and even time of day. This strategy pays off: internal data proves that 50% of DD Perks members visit more often when they receive a tailored offer. For example, a customer who regularly buys coffee in the morning might receive a discount on breakfast sandwiches. This level of personalization makes customers feel valued and understood, fostering deeper loyalty.

Related: 4 Questions All Business Owners Need to Answer to Have a Successful Exit Plan

5. After-sales engagement

Proactive after-sales interaction with the client strengthens trust, boosts satisfaction, and significantly increases the likelihood of repeat purchases. A Harvard Business Review study found that businesses that engage with customers post-sale enjoy a 20-40% higher customer retention rate, while 63% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy again from companies that offer the following services.

6. Building a Community

Building a community around your brand fosters emotional connections, drives loyalty, and stimulates repeat purchases by making customers feel valued and involved. According to Sprout Social, 76% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they feel connected to, and 72% will make repeat purchases if they’re actively involved in the brand’s community.

LEGO is actively developing its community through the LEGO Ideas platform, where fans can submit their own ideas for the next product and vote for the bets they like. By incorporating UGC into its product development process, the brand has not only engaged its audience but also turned fans into loyal customers eager to purchase products they’ve helped create.

Running a small business or side hustle usually means you wear all the hats, but there’s probably one that feels like it weighs 10 gallons: creating content. For those who weren’t born with a paintbrush, writing articles and designing logos means spending a lot of time for sub-par results or hiring expensive freelancers. It might be time to try AI.

While you’ve heard of names like ChatGPT, it’s not the best at creating content. A tool like AI Magicx, however, is designed specifically for generating creative AI content. It’s also much easier to control and cheaper with a lifetime subscription at $69.99 with code TAKE30 at checkout (reg. $99.99).

Bring your creative ideas to life in seconds

Most other AI tools will charge you monthly, but your AI Magicx subscription gives you monthly credits. With them, you can create up to 250 images, 250 logos, and unlimited words each month—probably far more than you’ll ever need.

AI Magicx is also one of the simplest tools we on the StackCommerce deals team have ever tested. If you want to generate an AI image, this is all you have to do:

1. Select a purpose and number of desired images.
2. Enter a description (the more detailed you can be, the better).
3. Choose an image style, like 3D, realism, or cartoon.
4. Click “Generate.”

You can follow similar simple steps to create art, articles, stories, or strings of code to use on your website. There is even an AI document editor if you ever want a second pair of eyes on your writing.

Use code TAKE30 at checkout to get an AI Magicx lifetime subscription for $69.99 (reg. $99.99) for a limited time.

AI Magicx: Lifetime Subscription (Rune Plan)

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