How to compete in a competitive industry

Many smaller or newer businesses struggle to compete in certain industries that have a lot of competition, especially when that industry is lead by several large and well-established companies. How can a smaller business that does not have large marketing budgets compete?

I have always been fascinated by the ability of certain smaller and unknown (to the general public) companies to be world leaders in their industry and to usually dominate their markets. How do they do it? To help answer these questions, we can turn to the work of Hermann Simon, Chairman of Simon - Kucher & Partners Strategy & Marketing Consultants. 

He has written several books on what he calls "The Hidden Champions." He began his work to help explain the power of Germany's exports which ranks second or third in the world (behind China and sometimes ahead of the U.S.). For such a smaller country to be in the same league in terms of exports as global heavyweights China and the United States is truly amazing. He concluded that the main strength in Germany's export machine was to be found in small and medium sized businesses that had become dominant within their niche industries. 

Here are the ways that these smaller companies managed to come to dominate their industries and become so successful in business:

1. Focus on a specific niche. Successful businesses don't try to be everything to everyone. They choose a specific product that provides a solution within a niche. They build the entire business model around this product so that their name & brand become synonymous with it.
2. Aim to be the best in the world at what they do. These companies always strive for the highest quality and dedication to excellence in everything that they do. This is hard and expensive, but this becomes a strength for them and a significant point of differentiation. It's easy to do volume and make products that are 'good enough', but it takes real commitment and resources to go further and be the best.
3. Closeness to customer. These companies allow most employees to interact and communicate with clients. This creates depth to relationships and creates emotional attachment and bonds between employees and customers. When employees care about a customer on a personal level they make an extra effort to do things right, and when a customer has more personal relationships with many employees within a company, they have more loyalty and will pay a premium to continue the relationship.
4. Excellent employee relations. These 'Hidden Champions', as Simon names them, make employees feel like they are an integral part of the company. They take personal pride in the success of the business and usually stay for a very long time. 

These are some of the key examples of how these companies are able to successfully dominate their industries. I know from personal experience of two examples of these kinds of Hidden Champions here in Montreal. Bijouterie Ex Aurum (engagement rings, bague de fiancaille, jewelry) and Recyclage 100 ENV (plastic recycling, recyclage plastique).

New SEO company to help small to mid-sized businesses

We are proud to announce a new partnership with a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company named SEO Systems. We have known the people behind this company for many years and know that they are committed to providing professional-grade SEO services for companies.

The importance of Search Engine Optimization has been known for many years and yet many companies still have weak SEO on their websites, costing them untold number of leads and sales each year. SEO is definitely "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to increasing business and sales.

SEO Systems is geared to optimize client websites (both local and regular search) for the most important keywords (including long-tail keywords). They provide weekly maintenance and monitoring for their clients and guarantee results. All of this for (as of the time of this post) $250 per month. This is a really fair price for what clients get, as most other SEO companies charge between $500 and $2500 per month for the same services.

Again, we are happy to be associated with such a reputable SEO company. All the best.

Great Marketing Always Begins with a Great Product

I have always believed that great marketing always begins with a great product. A great product makes marketing much easier. The product itself needs to be the star and the marketing only serves to spread the word about it and to instill desire in the prospect for the product. When you have the alignment of a great product offering, mixed with excellent marketing, then you can create the type of buzz that is so desired by retailers.

A great example of this can be found in the very competitive jewelry industry. Most of the big players (Tiffany, Birks, etc.) have big marketing budgets to keep their brands and products at the top of mind for consumers. But what if you are a smaller jeweler and you are trying to get some name recognition in such a crowded industry, with a smaller budget?

One such jeweler is Bijouterie Ex Aurum (Jewelry & Engagement Rings) who has to compete with several big jewelers in the smaller Montreal market. They don't have a big marketing budget and mainly get their clients via word-of-mouth and their website. One of the biggest reasons for their enduring success (they have been in business for over 25 years) is that they make the finest quality jewelry that they can make for their customers. In addition, they put so much focus on keeping their styles of engagement rings to a high level.

Their philosophy in putting such an intense focus on high-end style and first class quality has enabled Ex Aurum to thrive. You can see some of their designs below. While you look at these ring examples, keep in mind that these rings were designed and made with a focus on instilling desire within potential clients. As I have often said, if you can instill desire, to make the prospect begin to engage their imagination with respect to your product, then you are well on your way to building a loyal following. This is something that Ex Aurum does so well, as they have an ever-growing group of repeat clients and the best part is that this group also gives the company significant referrals.

Here are some of their products that have contributed to their success:

These are some of the examples that can be found.

Marketing and sales are really two sides of the same coin. It is very important not to do marketing in isolation from the design & manufacturing aspect. Both are needed to work together to be able to create the kind of sales environment that will make it much easier to sell your products.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Strategy Company

We have launched a new company that is solely focused on SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Starstruck SEO Services will help businesses boost their website's SEO ranking through on-page optimization as well as link building and regular content creation.

Many businesses simply put up their website and then forget about it, thinking that their website will eventually be found by the search engines and show up high in the rankings. Unfortunately, it does not work this way. Every website is competing with hundreds of thousands of other websites and only a precious few can be located on the first couple of pages. There are a huge number of companies (both in North America and overseas, especially in India) who have call centers full of staff and regularly canvas business owners to get them to sign up for some kind of SEO service.

In my experience, most of these companies are only interested in quantity (the number of people that they can sign up in order to get their monthly fees) and not in quality. Many have little practical experience in White Hat SEO (SEO that won't get your website penalized or banned by a search engine, like Google) and simply do the minimum for their clients. In fact, many of these so-called SEO practitioners will hurt your website by creating spammy back-links to your website and get your black-listed by search engines. It then takes a lot of work to get back your website's good standing.

Starstruck will be offering a complete package of White Hat SEO strategies that will quickly and permanently boost your website's SEO score and, as a result, boost your visitor traffic and that will lead to more customers and revenue. The professional and experienced staff at Starstruck will continually optimize your on-site SEO, provide clients with 1-2 pieces of original content (blog posts) each month, and embark on a link-building strategy.

SEO has the best return on investment for most businesses since it provides a company with a continuous means of attracting and gaining new customers. Our studies have shown that website visitors who arrive to a website via search engine results convert at a far better rate than other means including Online Ads and Social Media referrals.

We wish Starstruck the best going forward.

Rebranding Bijouterie Ex Aurum (Jewelry Store)

Last year I was approached to help give a face-lift to one of Montreal's premiere jewelry stores, Bijouterie Ex Aurum.

Ex Aurum has been in business since 1989 and their website was getting a little stale (especially for such a fashion-conscious industry like jewelry). They wanted something that better reflected their brand, which caters to clients who want the highest quality engagement rings and other diamond jewelry. They compete with stores like Birks, Tiffany's and Blue Nile so they need to make sure that their image properly reflects their high standards and customer service.

Their old website was a little too dark and did not compete well (style-wise) with their competitors, who are all contemporary in design.

(above, old website home page)

(above, old engagement ring catalog)

(above, old contact page)

(above, old Ex Aurum logo)

I started the re-branding with the logo. The old logo used a font that was a little too thin and lacked the strength of the unicorn mark. I decided to continue with a serif font, but make it thicker, richer and stronger in appearance.

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(above, new logo ... three versions)

The updated logo, with its thicker font, now is better balanced with the unicorn mark and has a much richer and stronger overall appearance. I also created a vertical version to be used in certain situations, like on the jewelry boxes.

Next, the website. 

I thought that a white website would be a better choice to Ex Aurum, as their primary business dealt with bridal jewelry (engagement rings) and as such pure white would be a more appropriate shade than black. White was also chosen in order to convey an aura of purity, perfection and of being new.

The new website needed to showcase the standards of high quality workmanship that Ex Aurum jewelers did their work and to show the visual beauty of their wide range of products. Exaurum.com was designed with a rotating product banner to highlight products and promotions that the store wanted to focus on. Below that, I added a grid of many of the most popular rings and other jewelry pieces. I did this because many people will browse for a bit on the homepage and then leave if nothing catches their interest. In order to keep them on the site and to help increase 'stickiness' of their stay, I deliberately chose some of the most popular products.

I also added a lead capture form in the footer, across the website, in order to encourage people to sign up for future news and promotions. This was integrated with MailChimp's service.

Ex Aurum also has many video clips of their products and I decided to show these in a loop. 

I then adjusted to the presentation for their products to really focus on the images of the products themselves. The old website had a text overlay of the product names (which meant little most people) on top of each product image. This obscured the beauty of the jewelry piece itself.

On the contact page, I added a contact form and a Google Map window showing the store's location and reviews. I also added the store hours.

These changes has lead to a significant increase in many visitor metrics including time on site, pages visited and conversions. The new site has significantly outperform the old one and with continued work, my aim to to keep improving the user experience for visitors to this store's website.