I liked the concept behind sap green mainly because they are wiping off this "charity" and bringing in "profit". At least this should encourage a fast development. If the same idea had been for charity also, the critics would have dubbed it as "hidden profit motives". Now that the motives are clear - profit along with clean environment, we need to think like businessmen on how to market this idea in a better way. More saplings and doing in large way means reduction in cost rates. So let us give our advice to sap friends on marketing their product.
My ideas (some are Ashwin's and his friend's ideas)
1. Approach foreigners through yoga classes.
2. Small boards about sap green in book shops.
3. Publicising through schools, colleges
4. Approaching Mysore university, so that it can make an understanding (or sign an MOU) and offer foreign students, visitors and delegates to plant saplings through sap green.
5. Contacting travel agencies who bring foreigners and travellers.
6. Contacting financial establishments like FICCI or industrial associations who usually have delegates from other places.
7. Introducing green greeting cards in Archies and other greeting stores. May be we can keep an attractive poster in each shop to attract the card buyers. For example: "Think again, do you want to buy your dear ones greeting cards which can reduce carbon emission and bring down global warming? Then buy green greeting cards." If sap green can offer an attractive commission, shop owners may agree.
8. Publicising at bakeries where people go to buy cakes for birthdays.
9. Boards at wedding and convention halls.
10. Boards at temples, churches, mosques.
11. Introducing affiliate links for bloggers and websites. (see this link to know more). Mozilla firefox used affiliate links to encourage and promote the browser.
12. If we cannot give speeches at each college/school about sap green's plans, we can at least try to notify this by putting posters on their college notice board.
13. Jayciana (annual fest of JC college) is coming very soon. May be sap green can open a desk at JC campus for whole week where volunteers will register a sapling. May be if there is some open space in JC college, we can take permission from college authorities and plant saplings. Now final year students will be leaving the college in 2-3 months, as a memory, they can leave a plant in JC campus or somewhere in the vicinity. Since the friends at sapgreen are SJCE alumni, we can expect their junior students to co-operate better.
Since this is for a good cause, we can request the shop owners to freely display the boards, or else at low charges. Please keep your ideas also flowing in.
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5 comments:
Good stuff!
Some queries: Are the saplings planted only in parks and other public spaces?
Can anyone who has a site in Mysore but are residing elsewhere can approach you for planting a sapling in their site and have it maintained by your company?
Do you offer bulk discounts for organisations like Asha for planting saplings around a school/similar institution?
Dear ravi, i hope sap green friends are thinking on having plans of introducing wide variety of packages so that each group of people or class of people with different income levels can have a choice.
i think sap green people can plant and maintain it well in parks. They have got permission from MUDA and also get water from them. When it is bulk management of saplings in parks, the costs work.
But i'm not sure about planting at empty sites. We do have many people residing in abroad and having sites in Mysore. I hope sap people can target this group too.
Waiting to hear from anil and ashwin.
Thank you gagan for putting all those ideas in one place. Jayciana is something on which we need to start working right away.
Regarding the query on whether saplings will be planted only in parks: In a week, we will start our next set of operations where we deliver the saplings and all required items to houses. In this case, maintenance is the responsibility of the house owner.
If maintenance of trees at houses is required, then the cost will have to be decided on a case to case basis.
For organizations, the price can be reduced depending on the numbers.
Point 13: I read in papers some time back that at Surthkal they have evovled a tree-plant tradition. Every student who passes out is encouraged to plant a sapling on and around the institute campus.
Alumni visiting the place after years feel elated at the sight of students doing group study under the trees their seniors had planted.
thanks aswin for the response.
as GVK said, we can talk to all the colleges so that each passing out batch of students can plant a sapling in the memory. may be we can talk to institutions like NIE. And Vidya Vardhaka engin. college has too much of empty space which they can turn into green space. May be a green umbrella all over.
ashwin, consider meeting the student representatives of JCE and also some administration people and convince them to give us a place during jayciana. and may be we can make an announcement about sap green between any popular show like ROCK SHOW. Students usually are not interested for anything other than fun during such situations. But the fact that it is their seniors who have opened such company should make any JC-ite feel proud.
May be from this year itself we can convince 2-3 engin. colleges about implementing the plan given by GVK.
If Mr. Vattam is able to get us through Mr. Vasu and convince them to introduce the "college memory sapling" plan Vidya Vikas institute, it will be better.
I feel if we can persuade these colleges:
NIE
JCE
Vidya Vardhaka
Vidya Vikas
GSSS (not to forget the girl's engineering college:-) )
If we can have minimum 100 students from each college going for planting, we can have 500 saplings at one stretch.
In order to persuade the students of engin. colleges, we can ask each branch of students to select one type of plant.
And apart from these, we can approach other college like:
>Mysore University post graduate students.
>Bahadur Inst. Of Management.
>SDM IMD (around zoo area)
>Sharada Vilas college
Those colleges which have ample space can have plants in the campus. Others can plant at places earmarked at other places of mysore.
I am waiting to see the response of ashwin.
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