Family-run businesses are seen as trustworthy, reliable and approachable. There are huge advantages to being a family business when it comes to building brand awareness online and increasing sales. Here are our top tips for harnessing the benefits of owning a family-run business and using them to build a brilliant digital marketing strategy.
Tell a story
The beauty of owning a family-run business is that you can use your family history, heritage and values to tell a captivating story about your brand. A fantastic content marketing strategy will allow you to engage with your target audience, tap into their emotional side and build meaningful connections with them. Use blog content, social media and video content to tell your story and show customers that your business is authentic and reliable. You can read more about the power of emotional marketing in our blog on the role of psychology in marketing.
Show that you are trustworthy
Studies have shown that family-run businesses instil a strong sense of trust in potential customers. 69% trust family businesses, more than any other type of business, and research has also shown that consumers feel far more comfortable dealing with a small family business as they are more likely to deal directly with the owner or a decision maker.
Position yourselves as multi-generational experts
If your family-run business has been going for three or four generations, use this to position yourselves as multi-generational experts in your industry. Show your customers that you have the tradition and long-standing knowledge of many years’ experience, but also that you are up-to-date with all the latest trends in your industry and are innovative and modern.
Keep up with marketing trends
One of the benefits of a family-run business is that you tend to build a strong brand presence in the local area, and a lot of your new business comes in via personal recommendations and word of mouth. However, it’s also important to make sure that you keep up with current marketing trends and don’t rely on your existing customer base to bring in new business. You may run a traditional business, but that doesn’t mean you have to rely on traditional methods; instead ensure that you’re using innovative digital marketing strategies to generate more leads.
Know your audience
As a local, family business, you may feel as though you know everything there is to know about your target market. While this may be true within your local community, this shouldn’t stop you from carrying out market research to find out more about your potential customers. Speak to your existing customers to find out where your target market can be found online, what they are interested in and what sort of content they would like to see. You can then use these findings to build a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that will enable you to increase your online reach and generate high quality leads.
Humanise the brand
We always find that social media posts (both for Cariad and for our clients) tend to perform better and have a higher engagement rate when they feature photos and videos of the team, telling a story or offering a ‘behind the scenes’ peek into the company. Customers love to see the faces behind the brand, even more so when it’s a family-run business. It helps to humanise the business, as opposed to customers feeling as though they are just making a meaningless transaction with a website. Showing off the people behind the brand helps you to appear more friendly and approachable, and will enable you to build a loyal customer base.
If you run a family business and are struggling to find the time to create a digital marketing strategy using these tips, feel free to give us a call on 01992 582 824 or email us at [email protected].
