The 10 Laws of Successful Watch Brands   

I can’t begin to imagine how much work goes into creating a watch brand or any serious business for that matter. I created an online watch magazine which I hope will start paying my bills soon.  I’m taking risks by going on that path because all of what I’m investing is time and a little money. Someone who creates a watch brand takes a bigger risk: they invest all of their savings to design and manufacture prototypes, create an ad campaign, and build a website. Even if you go through a Kickstarter campaign to fund your first model, you must inject money into the project at the very beginning. (This is the conclusion I came to after speaking to more than a dozen brand owners.) 

Every day I hear of a new brand coming onto a market and I feel it’s courageous to do so because the watch market is over-saturated. There are hundreds of brands someone could choose from to buy a watch. What brands need to know—or be reminded of—is that buying a watch is an emotional process much more than a logical one, and there are proven laws that brands must follow to appeal to our emotions and gain our trust.  Certain things could go wrong during our interactions with a brand that could have a long-lasting negative impact on their success. 

Although I mostly had microbrands in mind when writing this list down, it can apply to brands big or small, from Switzerland or Hong Kong, that were created 6 months ago or in the previous century. Brands: you need to stand out from the stack by following these 10 laws.   

Rule #1: Be a Great Communicator 

There is nothing worse for a consumer to get interested in a brand, and even excited about it, only to find their messages left unanswered.  

Because we rely on our emotions to buy a watch—and most of the time we can’t try it on at a store—our emotions need to be appeased.  Whether we want to know how long it takes to ship the watch when it will get back in stock, what movement is inside, if its water resistance is only theorized or tested, or even what do they mean when they add the line “Only a few in stock left” next to “Add to cart.”   

From experience, as a watch consumer and previously a professional working in sales and customer service, answering a question on email on social media platforms goes a long way in getting the trust of the buyer.  

The best-case scenario is when the owner of the company is the one answering the question, but anyone answering the question is equally fine.  As long as you (the brand) answer the question.  If you invite people to contact you to ask questions, make sure you answer them within a reasonable timeframe (not more than 48 hours.) 

And once you answer the first question, don’t stop there.  It’s even more frustrating for the consumer to only get some of their questions answered than none, as it puts the consumer in a suspicious mindset: why did the brands answer this question but not that one?  Do they not know or are they hiding something?  As a microbrand, you don’t want to do anything that raises suspicion because you cannot afford to get a bad reputation.   

Rule #2: Be Honest About Where Your Watch Is Made  

Tell your consumers where you get your watches made.  It doesn’t have to be the specific factory but indicate which country the parts come from.  And this is not to say there is something wrong with getting your watches made in one country over another, but transparency is key in getting consumers to trust you.  And know this: without trust, you won’t survive long.  If you don’t want to advertise this information on your website, do answer the question when it’s being asked.  

We tend to look down on whatever is made in China.  You can often read or hear comments such as “I don’t know where the [insert part name] was made but I bet it’s China!”  just because you didn’t indicate on your website where it was made.  The fact that it’s not made in Japan or Switzerland doesn’t make it a lesser part.  It won’t make your watch a lesser watch as long as the price you are selling the watch for matches the quality of the parts.  If you sell a watch with a $20 GMT movement, regardless of its provenance, for $1,000, that won’t do it.  But if you don’t indicate this information, people will start speculating where it’s from, even though it’s a good thing.   

So be honest and let people know where your watches are made.  It will remove any potential, irrational speculations and skepticism from the consumer, and you will gain the trust of the consumer by being transparent.  

Rule #3: Have Good After-Sale Service  

It’s great that you were communicative before we bought the watch, but be equally communicative after the purchase if the buyer needs clarification about the shipping status or if the watch needs repairs.  If you put in the efforts to get our trust to buy the watch, don’t stop there.  Following up on customer comments, complaints, and questions is just as important.  

The relationship that exists between the consumer and the brand is akin to a romantic relationship.  We put up our best game to seduce the other person, impressing him or her with our charm, honesty, and good character.  How hurtful it is when the other person stops being this way once the deal is secured?  We need to know you, the brand will take care of us once you have our money. 

Good after-sale service is what nurtures the relationship you have with the consumer.  The more responsive you are the more the consumer will trust you, the more they will recommend you, and therefore the more they will want to get back to your brand to buy another watch. Don’t limit communications to the moment you’ve made the sale.  

Rule #4: Train Your Staff Well  

Do you remember the last time you called your bank to talk about a fraudulent charge or to make a payment and it was clear after one minute into the call that you were speaking to someone who didn’t know anything about their products?  How frustrating it is to speak to an employee who didn’t get the proper training?  Don’t go cheap on training because it will erode the confidence of your consumers.  

You don’t have to make each employee a watch expert who could speak at an international conference on horology.  They need to know a little bit about each aspect of your business, of each model, and the general idea of how a watch functions.  They don’t need to be trained to the point they can service a watch but knowing what BPH means or what a GMT function does is crucial to make it possible for your employees to have positive interactions with the consumer.  

Investing in your staff not only will make you build trust with the consumer, but it will also make your employees feel more involved in your business and therefore stay longer.  Undertrained employees who feel under-appreciated will leave the company early on. You will lose an employee whose expertise would have become so great that your company would have been able to run itself.  

Rule #5: Listen to Your Fans  

The reason for creating a brand is personal.  Most of them come into existence because the owner wanted to create a watch they couldn’t find, that was too expensive, or no longer exists.  However, without sales, the company wouldn’t exist for long.  The first model you release is what will get the first consumers hooked on the brand, and they will quickly tell you how to improve the model.   It is tempting to ignore their feedback because you don’t want to lose your way; it’s equally tempting to take all of their feedback into consideration so that you don’t disappoint.  

If you don’t take into consideration the consumer feedback, they won’t come back to buy your second model.  They would feel you don’t care to make a better product because their reasons for supporting you are personal as well, and they will immediately feel invested whether or not it’s a good or rational thing.  Of course, the consumer wasn’t present in the room when you first designed the watch, so they didn’t have a say on how the model would come out, but they liked it nevertheless.  We can’t ignore human nature and the fact that people would want to tell you how to improve it.   

The key is to take into consideration the consumer feedback without getting lost in cramming all changes they suggest into a second version of the watch.  If you do, the watch won’t look good and it will most likely lose its soul.  Regardless of what you do, you would have to use positive communication with the consumer.  If you do this right and find the right balance, your second model will be better and will please your first fans who will help spread the word about you even further.   

Rule #6: Tell Your Fans About You 

This might sound odd but your fans may want to hear about you, your story, and why you created the brand.  This is important because they are many brands out there and you need to stand out to appeal to the consumer.  You need to get their attention by telling them a story about you and why you created a watch company.  And the story you tell about you will invariably tell a story about the watch the consumer is interested in buying, giving the watch more personality and appeal. Find ways for the consumer to connect with you because what you’re doing is highly personal and emotional, so is what the consumer does.  

Getting a story out about you will also help place you in front of the right influencers and online magazines who are looking to collaborate with brands they can support and stand behind.  Influencers are not only interested in your watches, but also in who you are.  They won’t talk about you if they know nothing about you or if your story is not compelling or truthful.  Lastly, creating an About section on your website will also help you understand who you are better; like writing a resume for the first time and realizing how much experience you actually have, or how little you cared for certain jobs.  

Rule #7: Don’t Make All Your Watches Limited Editions  

Multi-generational, established brands make limited editions because they can afford to do so.  Either they make a limited run of an old model that has been revived or they do a collaboration with another brand from a different industry to make a special-edition watch.  If your brand is young, consider not making your watches limited editions and/or in short supply.  Manufacturing watches takes time and requires investments of many sorts from you—money, time—and to prioritize something over another.  If you can only make a small batch at-a-time, indicate there will be more coming on your website soon.  If you know when communicate it.  

Watch collecting is an expensive endeavor and most collectors of watches need to work to support their passion.  If they happen to live in a different time zone than you when you release a new model, they’ll miss the release and feel frustrated.  Do this more than once in a row and your entire fan-based will be frustrated, even those who got their hands on your watch because they would have had to go out of their way to get it.  That leaves some minor emotional scarring that will linger inside the buyer’s psyche.  If this hasn’t been clear yet, you need to establish trust with your fans to keep their business and set proper expectations.  

Don’t get this wrong: doing collaborations and limited editions is great, as it brings variety to your catalog and makes business sense.  You want to do something different and tap into a different market.  However, too often we hear complaints about brands with models that are too hard to get, like how Rolex’s watches have become difficult to acquire.  But Rolex is Rolex, and the century-old reputation they have established for being one of the best watchmakers in the world will prevail short supplies and buyer’s frustration.  People will nevertheless buy their watches and influencers will make videos about which other models of the brand you can get.  

Making each model something hard to get will make you lose buyers rather quickly.  You don’t want to create frustration soon after your brand came into existence, and you don’t want to build a reputation of being hard to get.  You will create fatigue and generate frustration if people can’t get your watches.  

Rule #8: Don’t Pretend It’s an In-House Caliber

Be forthcoming regarding which movement you use in your watches.  It is common for brands to use an off-the-shelf movement, get a custom-made rotor and have it regulated, and market it as an in-house caliber.  Instead of seeing, for example, “Selitta SW-200” we see “ABC001” as a movement.   

Although you indeed got a custom-rotor, rebranding the movement rarely comes across as being genuine.  It gives the appearance that you are hiding something by not being truthful about what ticks inside the case.  It makes you come across as trying too hard to be special and doing something other brands aren’t doing.  It makes you look deceptive by not revealing where you got the movement from.   

It’s easier and better to say out-right where the movement comes from.  The last thing you want is to have a YouTuber open the caseback and realize it’s a Sellitta, Miyota, or ETA movement disguised as being something else.  There is a good reason why you are using the movement—reliability, affordability— so don’t hide it.  Again, it’s about building trust with the consumer and most watch enthusiasts/collectors know enough about horology to know most s can’t make in-house calibers.  

Rule #9: Don’t Overuse Kickstarter  

In most cases, you will have to go through a crowd-funding platform like Kickstarter to create the first model of your brand.   You need this initial seed of money to sign on the first order with the factory before you sit down to get working on the next model.  This practice is widely accepted and encouraged because it is rare that you have the capital to start a watch company, and we all want to see your prototype come to life as it looks different than what we’ve seen before.  

With that said, avoid using Kickstarter to launch a second model or a fifth model.  Doing so will make you come across as doing something wrong since you need more capital to keep the magic going.  Imagine if your favorite restaurant would fundraise every time it changes its menu or if your children’s school would ask you to donate money at the beginning of each term to pay for the teachers’ salaries.  This won’t inspire confidence that the school will still exist a year or two from now.  The same rule applies to watch brands.   

There was a recent example of a brand that has an 80-year history that created a Kickstarter campaign to revive an old model.  By all appearances, the brand seems to be doing well despite some recurring quality control issues.  But the fact that they have to crowd-fund a new collection left fans wondering how well the company is doing and questioning the reasons for bringing this model back at all.  There are many ways in which such decisions impact your fans, not all of which we can discuss here.  It could be that you don’t trust yourself this project will work and therefore you want to damage control potential revenue loss, or it could be that you are not managing your brand right and need to get more capital to keep going.  

Rule #10: Don’t Cut Corners  

Whatever watch you design, for whatever audience at whatever price you sell it, don’t cut corners.  Do not cut corners on the finishing or build quality of the watch, marketing, or your website.  There is nothing more frustrating for the consumer to realize that you made an almost-perfect watch but that you cut a corner in an area that is so subjective for each person that it will become a deal-breaker.  For example, be consistent in how you finish the watch and be extra vigilant with quality control.  You don’t want to lose a customer because a marker fell off the dial or because the movement doesn’t wind or the second hand doesn’t tick.  

Even if you—dare we say—make fashion watches, don’t cut corners on the marketing and go all out.  Don’t stop at refurbishing designs and marketing strategies, own it and make it your own because that will be the only way in which you will do something different.  Own up to whatever you are doing, whether about how you build the watch, source the parts, or market it.  Go all out.  More specifically, and that naturally applies to all brands, if you go as far as creating an original design, don’t put a cheap movement in it.  Even if the movement is decent, that won’t cut it with your fans.  

Cutting corners applies to all aspects of watchmaking, but they are certain areas that create the biggest storms.  For example, your brand name.  It has to be original, short, catchy, and something that people can easily pronounce and remember.  Your name shouldn’t have a long and mysterious origin or need someone to Google how to pronounce it.  Keep it simple. 

Even though the consumer doesn’t understand all of what goes into getting a watch made—and it certainly is not an easy feat to build a watch company—you cannot ignore the fact that the consumer will, for the most part, only care about his/her emotions when hearing about and wearing your watch.  That is one of the few important things you can control: how you make the product and sell it.  So don’t cut corners by doing things fast or wanting to save a few dollars on the manufacturing costs.  Because cutting corners will cost you more than the consumer is not willing to pay for your watch.   

Conclusion  

People buy watches because they want to feel a certain way about themselves.  They want to tell the world who they are and who they aspire to be. Buying a watch, therefore, is a deeply emotional process that leaves little room—if any—for reason and objective decision-making.  And that’s why watch enthusiasts are so passionate about horology: they put all of their being into it.  So when you play with consumers’ passion, interest, and loyalty, you gamble your reputation because you are as good as your latest release, your latest marketing campaign, and your latest Instagram post. 

Although the word “passion” now has the connotation of intense enthusiasm for someone or something, at its root, the word means “suffering.”  Think about this for a moment.  People who are passionate about anything—be it watches or endangered animals—go through many intense emotional phases as they interact with the object of their passion.   

So be honest and gentle with your fans, your passionate supporters and you will have long-lasting success.