Encouraging woodland owners to adopt sustainable forest management practices can be a difficult task and ultimately centers on the goal of changing behavior. Insights from communication and marketing offer valuable tools that can help professionals design effective outreach campaigns that attract woodland owners’ interest and compel them to take action. Outreach efforts have often focused on sharing information and technical understanding, whereas studies of behavior change suggest that changing awareness or knowledge alone has limited influence on motivation and behavior.
Designing Effective Messaging and Outreach to Woodland Owners
This set of briefs provides highlights from recent studies of woodland owners in the context of oak management, with a focus on providing useful tips and recommendations to help professionals develop successful outreach campaigns.
View the “Designing effective messaging and outreach to woodland owners” pdf
Developing Key Ingredients for Effective Outreach and Marketing
This lesson showcases how effective communication to promote managing for oak requires understanding woodland owners’ perceived barriers and benefits of the practice.
View the “Developing key ingredients for effective outreach and marketing” pdf
This short video highlights takeaways from this lesson.
https://youtu.be/LTNelwPKnFc
Using a Stages of Behavior Change Framework
This lesson provides guidance to foresters about how to use audience segmentation principles to communicate more effectively with woodland owners based on their readiness to adopt oak management practices.
View the “Using a stages of behavior change framework” pdf
Creating Effective Messages to Promote Oak Management
This lesson highlights what message characteristics are most effective for stimulating landowner interest in adopting oak management practices.
View the “Creating effective messages to promote oak management” pdf
This short video was made based on insights obtained from woodland owners about what would make them more likely to manage for oak trees on their land. The video features messages focusing on the majesty of oak, the importance of oak for wildlife habitat, why oaks need a lot of sunlight to thrive and how woodland owners can help protect the future of oak trees on their property. Share this video with woodland owners to help them understand the importance of oak as a species and the importance of managing for oak trees on their land.