To: Members of the Castle Rock Water Commission
From: Mark Marlowe, P.E., Director of Castle Rock Water
Sandra Sandman, Customer Relations Program Manager
Title
ColoradoScape Contest 2024 Update
Town Council Agenda Date: NA
Body
________________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
To further educate our residents about the beauty and benefits of a ColoradoScape, Castle Rock Water hosted its 6th annual ColoradoScape makeover contest to give away a free $9,000 front yard landscape. This social media contest was held April 1 - May 20, 2024. To enter, residents needed to create and post a 30 to 60 second video on social media with fun education about the benefits of ColoradoScape. A committee from the Water Commission and Castle Rock Water leadership chose the top 5 finalists using a rubric ranking. These finalists were put on the Town’s social media and voted on by the public. The video with the most ‘likes’ won a new low-water front yard makeover. The four runners-up received a Garden In A Box.
While contest entries were lower than expected, the outreach regarding the message about ColoradoScape reached in excess of 100,000, the largest audience thus far.
Outreach
The ColoradoScape contest is held in April to coincide with Water Conservation Month and residents are more in tune with landscaping efforts in the spring. This year, lawn posters were put up at various Town parks and an A-frame was at the April Home and Garden Show. Facebook posts were boosted (twice at $50 each) in an attempt to garner more entries. Additionally, Castle Rock Water placed an ad in an area HOA newsletter. A statement insert was not done like last year, but several customer emails to the 21,000 base were sent-each with about a 63% open rate.
As this is a social media educational program, the reach of these efforts has proven fruitful. However, entries to the contest continue to be sparse. The Town’s Communications social media expert strategically placed posts across all social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Nextdoor). Lack of significant entries has been surmised that the changing scope of privacy and posting on social media has fewer people making efforts to do personal posts. With the ColoradoScape rebate greatly exceeding budget this year, the effort of getting the ColoradoScape message may have been reached. Alternative ColoradoScape education and engagement programs/contests are being evaluated for 2025.
|
Year |
No. of entries |
Reach |
|
2019 |
31 |
30,000 |
|
2020 |
13 |
30,000 |
|
2021 |
14 |
45,000 (est) |
|
2022 |
13 |
57,000 |
|
2023 |
20 |
90,000 |
|
2024 |
12 |
100,000 |
Budget
While a budget of $9,000 is provided to the landscaper for installation, there were sizable donations this year from BLR Creative for landscape design; DCM&R Landscaping provided the plants and installation; SiteOne provided the rock, mulch and pavers; Rainbird donated the irrigation system including smart controller and rain sensor; and Hunter donated the lighting. Castle Rock Water’s actual total costs were about $10,000.
Attachments
Attachment A: Photos