Family Business Branding Strategy
Differentiation is essential in today’s competitive business environment. Businesses must be creative in order to stay top-of-mind and stand out from the crowd.
One way to differentiate a business from its competitors is through branding. In a general sense, branding is comprised of a company’s look and feel, customer service experience, emotional connection, products/services and much more.
A company’s backstory also plays a key role in brand positioning.
Family-owned businesses are in a unique position to leverage their family history, mission and values in their branding as a source of differentiation.
Having grown up working in her family’s hospitality business, Suasion’s president Susan Adelizzi-Schmidt learned early-on about the values of hard work and integrity – values she now instills with her team at Suasion. Companies rooted in such family values typically appear to be not only more stable, but also more customer-friendly and approachable.
This unique type of branding backstory creates positive associations in the minds of consumers, such as longevity, trustworthiness, and the coveted human connection to a product or service. These associations correlate with consumer confidence, and ultimately, a company’s sales and profitability.
Suasion engages family business branding with several clients who are second, third and even fourth generation family businesses. Utilizing a family business’ history helps perpetuate a unique culture, since within a family business, there is often a strong commitment to humanity. Customers and staff are often treated like extended family members, fostering a common sense of belonging. As a result, employees are generally happier and more motivated and productive.
A family-owned business’ history carries distinctive leveraging power history at the heart of its branding strategy. If a family business promotes the backstory of how it came to be and continuously evolved; welcoming generation after generation with a core principle of treating customers and staff like family, it can enjoy a halo effect that will set the business up for long-term success.