You have a killer idea for a watch business. Your watches are amazing and they could make a huge impact in the world. They can define a style and go beyond what other watches have to offer.
Now, what do you do with that idea? You need to create a watch brand and a business to get started.
There’s a lot of opportunity in the watch industry. The global market for watches is expected to increase by 8.2% year over year through 2022.
There’s a tremendous amount of growth for sport watches and luxury watches. There’s a tremendous amount of growth for sport watches and luxury watches like how the infamous Nomos Glashütte sales skyrocketed over the years. Where does your watch brand fit in the marketplace?
That’s what you get to discover by reading this article that will help you define your watch brand and launch your business.
What’s a Brand?
What do you know about branding? Did you know that a brand is one of the top ways to make a connection with your customers? It’s also the foundation of your business.
When most people start a business, they start with a business name, a product idea, get business cards made and make a website, then maybe think about the brand.
If you are getting ready to launch a watch business, you need to be able to sell your idea to the masses. You are pretty much selling the same exact product as Rolex, Tag Heuer, Swatch, and Timex.
What makes these products so vastly different? Brand positioning. When you think of Rolex, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
Most likely, expensive, luxury watches. That is the essence of the Rolex brand. Timex is about reliability. These are powerful and lasting watch brand identities.
This is so important to understand because every point of the customer experience – your website, your marketing, customer service, the watch itself – will stem from the brand.
A watch brand is so much more than your logo. It’s the feeling that people get when they think of your watch business. It’s a personality.
When you start to define your brand, think of it as a person. What would your brand drive? Where does your brand shop? What does your brand eat? What does your brand do for a living? What does your brand wear?
These questions may seem silly, but they will help you uncover the values behind your brand. A brand that drives a Prius is going to value the environment while a brand that drives a Ferrari will value high-performance.
Follow Up with Market Research
Now that you have the basics of your brand down on paper, you want to make sure that there’s a market for your brand. You know that there’s growth in the luxury and sport watch markets.
Does your watch brand fall in these categories? If it does, then you know that you may have a viable business. If not, then you have homework to do. You want to be able to discover that there is, in fact, a buyer’s market for your watch.
You also want to do your research on your main competitors. For a sports watch, you may be competing against Timex, Seiko, and Garmin.
These are multi-million dollar brands that have been around for years. You want to make sure that you position your brand in a way that’s different from the other brands on the market.
Look at who they target. Do they target men, women, weekend warriors, or hardcore fitness enthusiasts?
Write down who you think they target and how they price their products. This will be important information to have as you get further in the process of launching your watch brand.
You also want to know how your brand will be different from the other brands.
What will set your brand apart from the other brands that you’re competing against?
As a reference, look at Nike and Adidas. They both target sports enthusiasts, but in very different ways.
Building Your Business
Once you have the essence of your brand, you can start to build your business. This is the smart way to build your business because this ensures brand consistency.
That will instill trust and credibility in the minds of buyers and make them more loyal to your brand.
Where do you start when building a business? You need a brand name for starters. For your brand, you can pick 1 or 2 words that really reflect the personality of your brand.
You need to follow that up by making sure that the brand isn’t already trademarked, and the domain name is available. You also want to check to make sure that the business name isn’t already registered in your state.
You want to register your watch business with your state and then purchase the domain name. When you register your business with your state, you need to choose the corporate structure of the business.
A sole proprietorship is used mostly by freelancers or people just starting a business. With this type of business structure, your personal assets aren’t protected in the event of a lawsuit.
With an LLC, you have that separation of personal and business liability. You want to check with a business attorney and a tax professional to decide which is right for your business.
What’s Your Business Model?
You have the skeleton of your business, now you get to figure out the best part, which is how you’re going to make money.
There are a number of ways to build your watch brand and drive purchases. The first is through direct sales. This would likely entail starting an e-commerce store, driving traffic to the site, and converting the traffic into watch sales.
The second business model is to go through a wholesaler and then have your watch brand appear at retail locations.
You could do a combination of both as you build your brand. You can start with a direct model or even sell FBA on Amazon and then expand to wholesale accounts.
Write Your Business Plan
Yes, your watch brand needs a business plan. The fact is that your business will have a much better chance for success with a business plan than without one.
Your business plan should be pretty comprehensive since it’s going to serve as the roadmap for the operations and financials of your business.
This may make you go into a panic, but don’t stress about it. You did a good amount of the work when you were doing market research for your brand.
You want to follow that up with a detailed look at your target market and your financials. The financials may be the most intimidating part of the process to write.
In your financials, you need to document all of your expenses to start the business. This includes everything from office furniture expenses, how much each watch will cost you, domain names, marketing expenses, and office equipment.
You also want to document what your monthly expenses will be. You now know how much you need to sell to have a profitable business.
Once you have those numbers in place you can project what your sales and revenue will be in the first few years.
Marketing Your Watch Brand
Your watch brand needs to cut through the noise of other brands in a very creative way to attract consumers. Americans see between 4,000 and 10,000 brand messages a day.
How will your brand make an impact? This is where branding and knowing your target market become critical to your business.
Your job now becomes telling people what your brand is about. There are dozens of avenues to do this. You can start a watch blog, utilize influencer marketing, SEO, start an Instagram account and build a following on Facebook. You can also utilize PPC ads and blogging to capture people who are searching for watches online.
You want to choose venues that your audience will view regularly, and stay up to date on digital marketing trends. They may be on Instagram, where you can build your brand up and then use influencers to build trust and credibility.
You can also attend trade shows to introduce your brand to the masses. This will give people the ability to touch and feel the product. In this case, you want your booth design to be consistent with your brand.
The key is to make sure that your brand reflects its personality. If your watch brand is a luxury brand, then your Instagram posts need to be polished and elegant.
Otherwise, you can have a brand that’s inconsistent. Take a look at the luxury brand watches like Rolex on Instagram. Do you notice that they always use high-quality images? Their posts are all about the watches the show off the beauty and the craftsmanship behind it.
Building a Watch Brand Takes Patience
We live in a world that’s all about instant results. When you’re starting a business and building a watch brand, you’re not going to see results overnight.
You need to be patient and let your brand build. Your business hinges on how your brand is perceived by the public, so you need to have a very deep understanding as to what your brand is about. You also have to know what your customers want from your brand.
When you have those things in place, you can then take the next steps in making your business official and focus on the operational side of the business.
Want more killer tips for entrepreneurs? Check out this page for the top resources for entrepreneurs. The time is now to start your own brand and launch your business!