To: Members of the Castle Rock Water Commission
From: Mark Marlowe, P.E., Director of Castle Rock Water
Sandi Aguilar, Customer Relations Program Manager
Title
2022 ColoradoScape Contest Update
Town Council Agenda Date: NA
Body
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Executive Summary
To further educate our residents about the beauty and benefits of a ColoradoScape, Castle Rock Water hosted its 4th annual ColoradoScape makeover contest to give away a free $8,000 front yard landscape. This social media contest was held from April 1 to May 16. 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 chose the top 5 finalist videos using a rubric ranking. These videos were then placed 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 ColoradoScape contest was moved from a July/August timeframe to April 1 - 30 to coincide with Water Conservation Month and to pique more interest with the onset of spring. There were 13 entries and each of them fulfilled the requirements of having a strong water conservation message in a creative way. The five finalists were put on the Town’s Facebook site and the public was encouraged to vote for their favorite from May 6 - 16. Two duked it out and were neck and neck. They clearly took the publicity efforts into their own hands (as advised) and they ended up with 515 and 505 votes, hundreds ahead of the other videos. The winner was Amy and Shawn Stephens, from the Meadows. The other four finalists received a Garden in a Box containing more than 20 perennials.
The quality of the entries this year were notable and each had a strong and accurate conservation message. There were 13 entries, compared to 14 in 2021; 13 in 2020; and 31 in 2019.
An estimated 57,000 people on social media were reached in this effort. This is more than double of the reach from last year. This reach does include Instagram, which was not calculated last year. One notable post on Instagram, itself, reached more than 11,000.
Notification and Outreach Efforts
The purpose of this campaign is educating our customers via social media and reach is the measurement of success. Outreach consisted of a news release (attached), social media announcements and periodic reminders on the Town’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, along with email announcements. Additionally, an advertisement in an online neighborhood publication was purchased for $100.
Of the 57,000 reach experienced on social media, the final public voting post saw more than 18,000 and the winner notification post saw 9,700. Additional posts are planned for June as the landscape is revealed. Additionally, the contest announcement email reached 15,025 of the 28,615 accounts (52.5% open rate). The mid-month reminder email reached a similar quantity.
Budget
The budget for the project is $8,000. Several sponsors such as Rainbird Irrigation and DCM&R Landscaping have been secured. We did not search for additional sponsors as these funds are being allocated from the marketing budget.
Attachments
Attachment A: News Release