Providing appropriate and timely forestry information and educational resources to non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners is vital for encouraging sound forest management on their lands. Since NIPF landowners are a heterogeneous group of people who value their forests for varying reasons, outreach efforts targeted towards them should take this diversity into account in order to have a greater impact. This study uses a market segmentation approach to separate Michigan's NIPF owners into meaningful clusters or segments based upon their indicated forest ownership reasons. Four landowner segments were identified in the Northeastern Michigan study region. The usage pattern of different communication materials in the past and their stated preferences for types of materials were then analyzed for each landowner cluster. Given that outreach and extension services have limited resources, audience segmentation and tailoring communication methods specific to target audiences could be an effective approach for reaching landowners with forestry outreach materials.
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