Ride The Coming Wave Of Industry Growth

By Mark V Wiley, Chief Editor, Water Online Advantage

Unprecedented Market Growth

According to research reported by Market Data Centre, the water and wastewater treatment equipment market is on track to grow from US$69B in 2021 to over US$107B between 2022 and 2030. That would be an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.1%.

Another report, titled Global Industrial Water Treatment Equipment Market 2022-2026, predicts that the global wastewater treatment equipment market is poised to grow by US$8.48B between 2022-2026, accelerating at a CAGR of 4%.

If either report is correct, it is terrific news for companies poised to seize the opportunity. Despite there being real growth to capture, the playing field has changed and competition has expanded. The industry’s largest vendors will capture much of the growth and profits. The remaining growth will be won by small-to-mid-sized vendors fighting for new business.

Win with a New Approach

To capitalize on this projected growth, treatment equipment vendors must take a different approach to marketing and fostering prospects. They must take an approach that makes them stand out as thought leaders and trusted vendors in a very noisy and crowded vendor space. One way to do this is by moving away from reliance on product-centric outbound marketing efforts to affect the bid process at the end of the sales cycle to building brand awareness, recognition, and trust in the minds of customers ahead of the bid process.

While everyone else is doing the same thing to capture customer attention once the customer has determined what they need, taking a different path in helping the customer understand what they need will be received with less resistance, less competition, and provide more opportunity to showcase your company’s knowledge base. That path is found in brand equity and trust.

Build Brand Equity and Trust

A movement is taking place away from traditional marketing and a near sole-reliance on independent sales reps as vendors are realizing that much of their customers’ initial product discovery is taking place independently and online. Today, leaders in the field are leaning into content marketing to establish brand equity and customer trust in a way neither seen nor available in the past.

The primary goal of vendors is to get their products in front of key decision makers at utilities and municipalities. This is hard to do in an overcrowded space where your competitors are joining you in hammering your prospective customers with product ads, spec sheets, and sales calls. Your independent sales rep can only do so much.

Now consider this:

When positioned and delivered properly, content fosters relationships with a targeted pool of prospects who are increasingly difficult for your sales representatives to reach. Delivering valuable content to water and wastewater technology users across diverse municipalities and industrial markets is the most effective way to introduce and promote your product or service to the public. From a bottom-line perspective, brand positioning increases your brand’s awareness, communicates its value, and justifies its price point. Your brand’s position creates the perception of it as favorable, different, and credible in the memory and recall of consumers.

Ultimately, when your content shows up at the right place, at the right time, and in front of the right audience, it improves your brand's reputation. The more quality content customers see from you, the more likely they will have a positive association with your company, and the more likely they will turn to you for their needs.

In sum, building brand awareness and equity in the minds of readers is essential in an era of information overload.  Not sure where to begin?

We Can Help

Water Online can help you write and position content and place it in front of the end users you desire. We have the most dynamic audience of water and wastewater professionals in the industry, crossing the desks of supervisors, managers and engineers involved in treatment, distribution, and collection directly within key utilities and municipalities. And when we combine your content with our audience analytics, you receive key insights about who is engaging with your content.