Use Ready-Made Smart Irrigation Tools & Tips to Sell Irrigation Services

It’s officially Smart Irrigation Month! Smart Irrigation Month is sponsored by WaterSense (an EPA partnership program), the Irrigation Association, and many other green industry companies and organizations to raise awareness about water consumption and preservation.

Why July? Because water use peaks in July, and the average family consumes three times as much water during the summer than they do during any other season. This is due large in part because of outdoor water use and irrigation systems.

Proper planting techniques, the right materials, and a well-functioning irrigation system are key elements to having a beautiful, water conscious landscape. Can you think of any of your clients who need to improve these features?

I’m sure you can! So leverage this national campaign as an opportunity to approach and educate your customer base. There are plenty of ready-made resources you can tap into to start promoting Smart Irrigation Month and boost your irrigation sales.

Start with the Stats

Photo credit: Landscape Management magazine

WaterSense, the Irrigation Association and Ewing have compiled some great stats about water use and availability you can use to entice your clients to learn more about how you can help them use water wisely at home:

• 9 billion gallons of the 29 billion gallons of household water used each day come from daily residential outdoor water use
• The average family typically uses 320 gallons of water per day, but in the summer this spikes to 1,000 gallons per day
• Even though about 70% of Earth’s surface is covered by water, less than 1% is available for human use
• A broken sprinkler can cause 25,000 gallons of water waste in just one season
• An estimated 50% of water used for landscape irrigation is wasted

Put these stats together in a friendly email or mailer to get the conversation started along with tips and ideas on how your clients can conserve water at home- specifically regarding water used for landscaping.

Provide Helpful Tips

The Irrigation Association offers five easy strategies that help consumers save on water use and spend. Use these strategies and strengthen them with your explanations and ideas to help emphasize that you can help your clients preserve water at home and in turn possibly lower their water bill:

1. Plant right- Suggest plants that are native to your climate, low maintenance and don’t need a lot of water.
2. Invest in an irrigation system- Explain the pros to having a modern irrigation system at home rather than using portable sprinklers.
3. Water wisely– Share best practices tips for watering- ideal time to water, how to know if watering is needed, good products to use and more.
4. Maintain and upgrade your system– Highlight the benefits of keeping irrigation systems up to date and functioning- (use the statistic above about wasting 25,000 gallons with one broken sprinkler).
5. Work with an irrigation professional– This one should be easy for you to explain, and don’t forget to mention you are IA certified if that’s the case.

Use Ready-Made Resources to Help Communicate These Ideas

Supporting and promoting Smart Irrigation Month is a great reason to reach out to customers not only to help them but also to demonstrate your expertise, and reinforce your credibility and value. There are some great ready-made marketing materials you can use to promote Smart Irrigation Month via social media, your company blog and in communications with your clients.

Ewing offers a complete Smart Irrigation Month sales kit you can download for free to help you work with clients to win more irrigation sales. The kit includes an awareness flyer, irrigation inspection form and smart solutions proposal template.

WaterSense put together a cool infographic with some of the statistics and ideas mentioned in this post (see below), and The Irrigation Association  provides a lot of valuable information about water use and preservation on their website.

Don’t let this opportunity pass you by!