>I haven’t seen many successful examples of an exact keyword domain match, so I’m wondering if it’s a good long term strategy or if it can backfire?

Backfire how? There is nothing wrong with what they are doing. They established the term as their brand name.

​

>What would be a good strategy to compete with them and how important is the exact 100% keyword match in titles and text?

You compete with them the same way you would compete with them if they didn’t have the exact match domain name. Nothing should change about your strategy.

Also, if your entire digital marketing strategy revolves around one keyword, you may want to take a closer look at how you are doing things.