Are You A Water Player? Be The Brand.

By Jim Lauria and Adam Tank

In a business driven largely by engineering and logic, the best marketers in the water industry speak both to the heads and the hearts of their audiences. It's a strategy that is as important when talking to those logic-focused engineers as it is when communicating with concerned ratepayers or inquiring regulators.

That takes long-term commitment and lots of trust. As Stephanie Corso of Rogue Water says, "Communication is not a project, it's a relationship." That means showing up, being authentic, and building a presence in the community.

Public Education

Corso, and her business partner Arianne Shipley, are the H2duO — the dynamic team behind water communications agency Rogue Water. Together, they push the communications bar up a notch...or two or three. These two professional disruptors joined forces while working for water utilities. On the?Water We Talking About??podcast, hosted on Water Online, they described their drive to build a business together to help utilities tell their story rather than trying to dream up ways to tell water's story in a vacuum.

The result is a team Corso describes as "a hybrid of legit water professionals and creative masterminds," led by two professionals who have moved dirt with backhoes and also know how to move audiences to action.

Those audiences range from ratepayers who just want to understand why their water bills went up after a drought or what their utility's newsletter means to engineers who want to tell the story of water.

The H2duO puts its money where its mouth is, building their presence in the water community not only with the great work they do for their Rogue Water clients, but also through its non-profit Rogue Water Lab, a hub for learning, sharing, and nurturing a growing wave of water storytellers. Rogue Water Lab is the umbrella that also includes the H2duO's weekly newsletter and their?Water In Real Life?podcast, more than 100 episodes that provide a master class on communications and the water industry.

Corso and Shipley are also stellar guests on other hosts' podcasts. One of the most valuable lessons they shared with us on?Water We Talking About??was the need to just start — building a communications program one brick at a time — even if a complete budget isn't available. Show the results, they said, and the budget will come.

Then, in Shipley's words, "build credibility and buckle up for a long ride."

A Content Journey

Megan Glover describes her customers' long ride as a "content journey," and like Corso and Shipley, she is laser-focused on building credibility and trust. Co-founder and CEO of 120Water — which helps water utilities, schools, and other facilities navigate the complex sampling and compliance system for lead and other contaminants in water supplies — Glover leads prospects from brand awareness, to listening, to best practices, conversations on how 120Water can help them, and finally to considering a demonstration. It's an ideal study of the power of telling the story of water to build a strong brand.

The lessons Glover learned in her early career in the world of tech startups have fueled her creativity, passion for innovation, and strong belief in the power of data. This is the woman who saw a gap in the water testing industry and ran to fill it, then pivoted to address an even more pressing lack of solutions to help water utilities manage the vast troves of data required to understand, address, and comply with regulations around water quality testing.

She is also the creative promotional mind who presented clients and prospects with Lego kits of water treatment plants, creating a level of engagement unheard of in our industry, as well as an ongoing reminder of 120Water. (After all, once you've taken the time to assemble a Lego water treatment plant, you?know?you're going to display it in your office.)

Thought Leader

The world is full of innovative solutions and brilliant promotion. What Glover and the rest of the 120Water team have really built is a trusted brand. That's why she starts with talking in plain English about best practices and how 120Water helps customers every step of the way through a complex process. It's why she takes them on a journey rather than just showering them with messages and pitches.

Megan Glover knows who her customers are, and she assesses them in terms of whether they're early-stage, mid-stage, or late-stage prospects, allowing her to send the right message through the right channel at the right time. That provides the opportunity to deliver her message over and over until it's committed to each customer's memory and create what she called on our podcast a "customer ecosystem" that provides ideal opportunities for 120Water customers to benefit most from the company's solutions.

Most important, Glover uses her intelligence and position as a thought leader not only to provide information customers can use, but to constantly seek out their feedback to help 120Water shape its own business. When she says "Embrace innovation," it's not just advice for her customers, it's a mantra that drives her own company, too.

That's the kind of commitment that builds trust and makes you want to embark on journey that 120Water can take you on.

Make A Difference

Melissa Meeker is another water professional who has dedicated her career to building credibility and answering a central question she shared with us on our podcast: "How are you going to make a difference in the future of water?"

Meeker has spearheaded the development of The Water Tower, a research and demonstration facility in Gwinnett County, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta. The Water Tower is no ivory tower — far from it. It's an innovation campus, a place where companies or utilities can plug into real wastewater flows of varying concentrations to explore, invent, perfect, and test technologies. It's a lab, a demo site, a place for third-party validation, a hub...the most massive water cooler for industry professionals to huddle around and brainstorm.

When it opens in the first quarter of 2022, the Water Tower will also be a magnet to attract the next generation of water professionals, a place for students, in Meeker's words, "to follow their STEM dreams and go work in water."

That is — absolutely — the greatest impact on the future of water our industry can have.

Each of us in the water industry has a chance to build our brand while also contributing to our industry by telling the story not only of our technology or service, but of the value of water. From Arianne Shipley, Stephanie Corso, Megan Glover, and Melissa Meeker, we can all learn the value of energy, focus, drive, and most of all, the immense value of building credibility and trust in the effort to build strong brands...and a strong future for our industry.