DNR’s Forest Products Services Program published articles and information about forest product utilization and marketing, wood processing and drying, innovative wood technologies, and program news in the Wisconsin Wood Marketing Bulletin for more than 30 years. Recently, this newsletter content was merged into the DNR Division of Forestry’s news feed and rebranded as “Forest Products News.” Wisconsin Wood Marketing Bulletin subscribers will continue to receive similar news and information, but this new format will improve the delivery and consistency of content for the Department’s news subscribers.Thanks for your time and feedback
In March 2017, the Forest Products Services team conducted a survey of newsletter subscribers to gather feedback on newsletter topics, comments, and suggestions to improve published forest products-related content included in the former WWMB and in the Forest Products News moving forward. A total of 363 surveys were completed, with a response rate of approximately 8%. Because of the very low response rate, the results cannot be interpreted as a statistical representation of the Forest Products subscriber population, but the results may indicate tendencies among perhaps the most avid readers of the newsletter.
Based on the feedback received, we found that readership is made up of individuals identified as loggers, primary wood users, secondary wood users, government employees, private business owners, land owners, individuals, and other (such as, researchers, foresters, nurses, and respondents who didn’t disclose their occupation). All the newsfeed topics and sections were equally popular among the survey respondents. Based on the response provided, 47% of the readers stated the news may be more effective if published four times a year instead of the current frequency of twice per year.
We also found that the forest products topics are useful for readers both personally and professionally. In addition to the topics previously covered, readers also requested topics such as stumpage pricing/trends, forest products research, regional product output, industry information market opportunities, and utilization options for species and products that are difficult to market. The FPS team will further analyze these suggestions and will aim to include some of these additional topics in our news feed posts. We will continue to gather feedback and suggestions from our audience as part of maintaining and improving the relevance and quality of the content to our reader base.
Contact Sabina Dhungana, DNR Forest Products Specialist, (608) 261-0754, Sabina.dhungana@wisconsin.gov