Conservation Benefits

• Great Gardens: Dispel the notion that water efficient equals ugly.
• Garden Ideas: Homeowners are always on the look out for garden ideas to improve their properties. Link gardening with water conservation.
• Right Plant Right Place: The program is filled with plants with accompanying photographs, organized in a manner to help them find the best plants for each situation.
• Repetitive Communication: Gardening is America’s number #1 participation hobby. The software is so content rich that homeowners will turn it on again and again as they work on gardening projects.
• Managing Irrigation: The software makes it easy to find the answer to the question: How much should I water my garden?
• Custom System Advantages: Since the program is filled with local examples and the plants selected for their regional viability the program is particularly practical.

For more information, please call Gardensoft 805-499-9689 and ask for Gerry Kiffe
or
email Gerry

1. Water Conservation educational outreach is essentially a marketing problem.
1. How can I win the attention of the populace sufficiently to communicate my message frequently enough and clearly enough to solicit changes in people’s perceptions and actions?  Without people’s full attention your marketing efforts are fruitless and without impact. The Interactive Water Wise Gardening CDROM software is precisely that, an attention-riveting device.
2. Show Don’t Tell.
1. For years water agencies have been telling people what they should do about water use. This works for indoor water efficiency but when it comes to landscaping and gardening this does not work.  Gardening, unlike water conservation, is an aesthetic activity.  It has to do with making things more beautiful just like interior design.  Most people wrongly associate xeriscape and water conservation in the landscape as adding up to ugly and unattractive. To convince people to the contrary we must show them hundreds of examples of great gardens that are water efficient.  This is precisely what the GardenSoft programs do.
3. Plant Lists are Passé’.
1. Water conservation education has matured way beyond simple plant lists. We need to evolve the focus to include the whole scope of gardening. Giving people lists of recommended plants is only a very small tool in the overall picture. We need to talk about appropriate horticulture, encouraging people to pay attention to their watering patterns, settings on their controllers, use of mulches, right use of turf etc. Simple plant lists touch on very little of this. The Water Wise Gardening CDs address all of these issues in a holistic way.
4. Repetitive Communication is the life-blood of marketing an idea or product.
1. Marketing professionals will all tell you that the only way to create an effective marketing campaign is to create a repetitive communication cycle. Telling people something once will rarely solicit change. Tell them twice would be better, tell them ten times is best. Because the software has things in it to appeal to and be relevant for any outdoor landscape or gardening project people turn on these programs again and again as they make outdoor home improvement.
5. Irrigation is where the rubber meets the road
1. Our primary target needs to be getting people to be more cognizant of irrigation practices. Statistics show that over half the water put on a landscape is wasted in run-off. Using pop up messages and having a Main Menu button for Watering Tips gives the software tools to communicate this irrigation message again and again.
6. Gardening has more sex appeal than water conservation.
1. The concept behind this software is that gardening is the hook to communicate water conservation messages. The gardening and home improvement audience is legion and the software is aimed at that audience. The number one participation hobby of Americans is gardening. By creating a gardening CD we take advantage of that fact to communicate water conservation.
7. Appropriate Horticulture = Water Conservation
1. If we put the right plant in the right place, if we prepare and care for the soil, if we mulch, if we use IPM rather than toxic chemicals all of this lends itself to water conservation. That is because a healthy plant is one that is watered appropriately, not too much nor too little. Remember the statistic about over-watering in American gardens.
8. Environmental Concerns have come Home
1. The growing movement in this country in the direction of protecting the environment for future generations is moving from the macro level to the micro level. People want to know what they can do, not just the politicians and large business entities. Water Conservation in the garden is an expression protecting the environment as a whole. This software gives people concrete things to do in the Garden Resources sections and elsewhere.
9. Distribution Venues are numerous.
1. Landscape Classes, New home buyers in tracks, Earth Day, County Fairs, School education programs, announcements in monthly water bills, sales desks at the local nursery are all examples of places the CD can be distributed.
10. Web and CD the GardenSoft marketing tag team.
1. GardenSoft has created software to convert the CD systems it creates into web systems in very short order. As a marketing and educational tool the Web and the CDs can both be employed to get the message out. The Web is passive marketing, requiring people to choose to come to the site. It offers more flexibility in terms of editing and updating and more universality of access. But it is important to remember that just because you put something on the web does not mean lots of people are visiting it. It will require a marketing campaign, and a vigorous one, to get people to come. The CDs on the other hand are a “qualified buyer” marketing tool. If you find a motivated person, “garden enthusiast” then the CD handed to such a person is a powerful and tangible marketing tool. The images are larger, and at higher resolutions and appear instantly when located on the hard drive of someone’s computer.  The user can create and store their own personalized lists better on stand-alone software than from a web site.  These are advantages the CD offers.  GardenSoft has created both systems to work in tandem.