January 2008 Are We Losing Our Value? Why GE Water pulled out of 270 trade shows to invest in its own proprietary event program By Nancy Mann Jackson
In 2006, GE Water and Process Technologies exhibited at about 300 trade shows. In 2007, that number plummeted to just 30. Rather than maintaining its rigorous show schedule, GE Water last year launched its own proprietary event — the World Water Tour — and drastically reduced its presence at third-party events.
An international road show, the proprietary tour is held in cities around the world where water scarcity is an issue, educating local officials and water industry professionals about industrial water reuse, water recycling, water scarcity solutions and the leading technologies available to tackle water problems.
“There wasn’t an ideal show out there that was perfect for us,” says Jeff Fulgham, GE Water’s Chief Marketing Officer. “So we decided to create our own. As we follow the trends and the markets, we’re trying to create a smaller community. We want to go to regions where water reuse is a major issue.”
Although launching the World Water Tour meant GE Water would no longer exhibit at many shows, the company maintains a presence at a number of major shows in its industry. In determining which shows to go to, Fulgham’s team starts with its “Growth Playbook,” which is the company’s three- to five-year strategy.
“That becomes our fundamental measuring stick,” he says. “We look at which shows bring in the audience we want, and what are the messages we want to take to those audiences. As we look at the shows next to our core strategy, some shows just fall off, and some fall right in the middle of the audience and the location we want to reach. We also reach out to our extended sales team for their input and rack and stack that on a lot of different factors, such as what level of customers come and if they’re in our targeted geography.”
Some shows are practically required to maintain a presence in the water industry, according to Mayra Bergman, project lead for the World Water Tour. Many of the shows in which GE Water maintains a major presence are the association shows for various subsets of the water industry, such as the American Water Environmental Foundation and the National Petroleum Refiners Association.
Currently, GE Water spends about one-third of its overall event budget on its own shows, but Fulgham aims to increase that percentage to about half. “We’ll never do exclusively our own shows, but 40 percent to 50 percent is a good mix, especially as we learn better how to do this,” he says.
Making the Decision While dropping 270 trade shows sounds extreme, the change was largely prompted by the merger of five companies that has now become GE Water. For the company’s highly specialized products for water scarcity, a custom show just seemed to make sense.
Executives made the decision based on several factors. “First, we had a need to reduce costs,” says Fulgham. “GE Water was formed when five smaller businesses came together. Each came with a set of activities, events, and shows, and much of it was redundant. Others were shows that really didn’t make sense for us once we sat down and looked at the audiences they were reaching.
“We also needed to focus on our core business strategy,” Fulgham says. “We had multiple businesses going to multiple markets, and there was a bit of clutter. We needed to focus and unify our message. We also needed to be consistent with the GE brand, and that brand is not a 10-by-10 booth. We’re not a bunch of small businesses anymore, so it made sense to do fewer, bigger, better shows.”
While the decision to forego many industry trade shows in favor of a proprietary event ultimately rested with Fulgham, he said it became the obvious solution to his entire team as they began to formulate a unified marketing strategy from those of the five merged companies.
Not only did a proprietary event seem to make sense for reaching the audiences GE Water targets, but it also presented a powerful opportunity to combine an external marketing event with internal training. Because the company’s marketing team also runs its training function, the team offers two days of training for salespeople prior to the event, and salespeople are then available on site to interact with customers and prospects throughout the seminar.
“We get a lot more bang out of the event by extending it a couple of days and doing internal training,” Fulgham says. “The training before the event is very focused on a particular solution or solution set, from the perspective of how we can help the customer use water more efficiently. So when the salesperson’s customer comes in, he or she is fresh and ready to answer the customer’s questions.”
Staging the Tour For a company focused on water technology with no experience staging events, GE Water made a surprisingly smooth entrance into the event production business. “We’re fortunate that we have some really capable staff members who were willing to take on new roles,” Fulgham says. “We didn’t put anybody new on staff to support those shows; we just diverted some other activities to allow staff members to do this.”
And for the skill sets that couldn’t be found on staff, the company located qualified partners to outsource those portions of the event. “There were some skills we really needed to develop, such as global logistics,” Bergman says. “It was a challenge to transport our logistics and our solutions lab from place to place, so we outsourced that aspect.” Other outsourced event components included registration, telemarketing and creative.
Even with strong outside partners, GE team members found themselves learning as they managed logistics and the educational program — and they weren’t afraid to make changes along the way as they refined the process. “We realized that having a realistic time frame was critical for us,” Bergman says. “Our original schedule was too aggressive; we planned to produce 14 events, but we only did eight. We’re launching again in 2008 with eight events.”
In addition to learning the time frame needed to produce their events, Bergman and her staff also learned how to collaborate with an expanded team across the globe. “We had to work with a crossfunctional team, a global team, and being able to adapt to their needs was something new,” she says.
As they began planning each international event, the GE Water team would start by contacting the local GE office in the destination city or country. Those GE contacts were usually able to recommend local vendors and facilities to help begin the planning process. While most of the Water Tour events were held in hotels with meeting space, a few were located in GE training facilities. “We look to hold more events in GE facilities, because it gives the customers a chance to see our technical labs,” Bergman explains.
As with most events, flexibility became a key ingredient for planners of the GE Water Tour. “We changed the content considerably throughout the year,” Bergman says. “We realized that people were looking for more opportunities to meet with our technical experts and for more technical workshops, so we made that more available.
“We also started with one single message, but learned that some people wanted to learn more about technology, some wanted to learn more about corporate social responsibility, and some had other specific interests,” Bergman says. “As a result, our Web site changed; our invitations changed. We just realized we had to break it down to reach those different groups.”
Finally, the company learned that its attendees and prospective attendees wanted more information about the events before registering. “We realized that people want to know more details on the agenda, such as who the speakers are,” Fulgham says. “As we’ve gone forward, we’re trying to get speakers, dates and locations locked down earlier, because people, especially the people we’re trying to reach with these events, like to plan in advance.”
Attracting an Audience Drawing customers, and especially prospects, to a proprietary event is challenging, and securing well-known outside speakers and publicizing them in advance has proven to be a valuable marketing tool. While the Water Tour showcases GE Water’s in-house technical experts, the centerpiece of the events is attention to each local community. While the messages are basically the same in each area, the messengers are different — and are always local. GE Water recruits local speakers who can talk about the nuts and bolts of the water issues in the local community and who have a vested interest in the topic.
“In Las Vegas, the Southwest Nevada Water Authority is very interested in reducing water scarcity, so they want to be involved,” Fulgham says. “In Atlanta, everyone from the governor to the mayor is very interested in being a speaker. Our audience is interested in hearing them speak because they’re the people who will be making decisions that will affect the future of water in their area.”
The event in Chile featured the country’s Minister of Mining as a speaker, and an Australian geologist spoke in Melbourne. “These third-party speakers can talk about local issues in a way that we can’t,” Bergman says.
And those local issues are the main reason most attendees are drawn to the event. “We’re bringing something that’s a top-of-mind issue,” Fulgham says. “We’re bringing it to the right areas, to the regions where water reuse is a major issue. We promote the message by targeted e-mail blasts, direct mail, and with 3,200 global salespeople and service personnel, and people are interested.”
In addition to learning about their own region’s problems and proposed solutions from the local speakers, attendees like hearing from GE’s technical experts. “We have very bright people on staff, and customers usually don’t have opportunities to meet with them and troubleshoot with them,” Bergman says. “But at our events, they can do those things, as well as learn from them in technical workshops.”
Aside from all the educational content, the Water Tour also offers unique opportunities to network with peers in the area, Bergman says. The day-and-a-half events incorporate a welcome reception on the night before the meeting begins and a hospitality night on the final evening. “People like having interaction with other similar customers,” Fulgham says. “Great sharing goes back and forth.”
Reaping the Benefits While Fulgham and his team work to measure ROI both from the Water Tour events and from other trade shows, it’s “tough to put a direct number on the pipeline of opportunities,” he says. “But if we have 100 attendees, we look closely at current and future revenues generated from those attendees.” Bergman estimates that 40 percent of attendees are current GE customers while 60 percent are noncustomers.
Thanks to its closely targeted audiences and locations, the Water Tour yields highly favorable leads. “We have a very rich pipeline that’s a result of these shows,” Fulgham says. “It’s probably a factor of 10 times greater than what we would have if we spent the same money and effort on more generic trade shows. At a trade show, we find that the number of people we talk to that are potential customers is a much smaller percentage. At our own events, 100 percent of attendees are interested in doing business with us.”
Exit surveys and net promoters score (NPS) cards show that GE’s content and message are resonating with attendees and speakers. “The NPS numbers we’ve received from these events are very high, some of the highest scores we’ve ever had, not just on a show but on anything we do,” Fulgham says. “These events have garnered three times our average customer satisfaction index.”
Looking to the Future After a successful first year, the learning curve has shortened, and GE Water is set to launch its 2008 World Water Tour, with only a few changes in the works. First, the team is looking at forming partnerships with sponsors such as local water distributors and even with some internal partners such as GE Energy.
“We also want to do more data-gathering, looking at who is coming and what their needs are,” Bergman says. “And we may launch a media campaign as part of the tour.”
Finally, Bergman would like to stage a more robust technology showcase on site at each event. During 2007, the events included a small display area, which covered about 60 square feet in the same ballroom where seminars were presented, but Bergman would like to increase the number of interactive tools presented to showcase more of the company’s water solutions.
Nancy Jackson, a freelance writer and editor, writes for a number of associations and corporations. She has worked on the editorial staff of Convene and is a college writing teacher and marketing communications consultant. Contact her at: nancy@writeshoponline.com. Sidebar: Going Where the Water Isn't In early December, Lake Lanier, the Georgia reservoir that supplies most of metropolitan Atlanta’s 5 million people, had less than four months of readily available water. And with forecasts of an unusually dry winter, Georgia authorities were searching for options in case water reserves dried up. Suddenly, Atlanta was a perfect location for the GE World Water Tour.
“If you look at a map and find the areas of water scarcity and compare that with the amount of industry in those areas, that is where we want to go,” says Jeff Fulgham, Chief Marketing Officer for GE Water and Process Technologies. “We want to go to regions where industrial water reuse is a major issue. We’re very consistent in our message; we don’t change it for each city, we find cities that would be interested in our message.”
For instance, the Middle East is an important market for GE Water’s products because water is scarce in the region and because large amounts of money are currently going into new infrastructure there. As a result, the World Water Tour plans to make a stop in Bahrain in 2008. Other possible locations include China and India.
Fulgham believes the company’s targeted site selection is a chief reason for the events’ success: “We’re finding the areas where water reuse is a top-of-mind issue, and we’re bringing our message to the right people in the right places,” he says.
Sidebar: Show At a Glance Name: GE World Water Tour Web site: www.ge.watertour.com Length of events: Two days of internal training, one and a half days of seminar sessions Locations: 2007 events were held in Las Vegas; Houston; Chicago; Monterrey, Mexico; Edmonton, Canada; Santiago, Chile; Melbourne, Australia; and Brussels, Belgium. Locations for 2008 have not been announced but will include cities in the Middle East, Europe, China, India, North America, and South America. Attendance: In 2007, attendance ranged from 70 to 110. GE Water expects attendance numbers to increase in 2008 because events will be held in different locations, including less saturated markets like India and China, and because of the momentum and brand recognition the tour has gained. Registration fee: $200-$400, varying by geography Exhibit space: GE Water uses about 60 square feet for exhibit space, usually accommodated in the same room as the seminar sessions
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