FamOps Marketing: Marketing Delegation Operating System for Family Businesses

Recently stepped into our 30-year-old family business. Looking for advice on building a proper marketing/business development function.

I'd be careful hiring a full marketing department around the current setup, because right now you are still the operating system. Campaign planning, creative approval and lead tracking all end with you. Adding people without changing that gives you more people waiting for a decision. My first internal hire would own the lead journey after attention arrives. Every Meta lead gets an owner and a next action, and you can trace it back to the campaign and forward to paid work. That person can coordinate outside specialists, but the weekly pipeline review stays inside the company. I'd keep business development and strategy close to the family. You have 30 years of relationships, government work and repeat clients. An agency will never understand that side of the business as well as you do. Production is easier to outsource. Website work, case studies and campaign execution can be bought. I run client work across ads, CRM and follow-up, and I only feel comfortable delegating when I can see the current state without asking five people. Which campaign created the lead, who spoke to them and whether it turned into business. Get that view working first. Otherwise you'll still be running marketing on top of everything else.

you're not really 'behind on digital,' you're at the stage where you need a marketing SYSTEM and a first hire, not to keep doing it all yourself. a few things: don't abandon what works. 70% relationship and referral after 30 years IS your moat, and the govt / international / multi-country work is a massive trust signal most competitors literally cannot match. so the first digital job isn't 'do ads,' it's 'make us look online as credible as we already are in person', a professional site with real case studies and client proof, and a tidy LinkedIn for the B2B side. that alone closes the 'smaller competitors look more professional' gap you noticed. the real problem you described is that everything runs through you. at ~600k turnover you can and should stop being the marketing department. hire or contract ONE person: a marketing generalist to own execution (you set direction, they run campaigns, creatives, lead tracking), or an agency specifically for the B2C paid side. you become the strategist, not the button-pusher. separate the two motions, because they're not run the same way. the B2B core wants credibility content, LinkedIn, and nurtured relationships, not paid ads. the new B2C verticals are where paid ads, a real funnel, and lead tracking actually matter. running them identically wastes money. and fix lead tracking first with a simple CRM, you're doing it manually now, which is a system a person shouldn't be, and it's what lets you eventually measure whatever marketing you pay for. sequence: credibility site + case studies + CRM, then one execution hire or agency for the B2C paid motion, then you step up to oversight. what split of revenue are you expecting from the new B2C verticals vs the B2B core? that decides how much to pour into paid vs just polishing credibility.