Entries Tagged 'Bird Marketing' ↓

In 2008 the American Marketing Association released their newest definition of marketing, as follows:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

If we as bird conservationists wish to increase our ranks, we should apply this new definition to promoting bird conservation. So let’s break this definition down.

“…activity, set of institutions, and processes…”

Promoting bird conservation requires action from a wide array of sources: teachers and schools are essential to getting the word out on how important birds are and why the conservation of them is so important. Along with teachers are parents, the government, and of course the birding community as a whole.

One of the most important things the birding community must realize is that every time we as birders are in the public, we are representing bird conservation. Every time a list-serv discussion turns into a name-calling, whiny display of immaturity, new birders are lost. Each time a photographer is scolded in the field for “getting to close”, another conservationist might be lost.

Black-throated Green Warbler

“…creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value…”

Blogging has afforded many birders with the opportunity to easily create, communicate, deliver, and exchange their thoughts and ideas. Whether these all have value is up for interpretation, but the tools are available for anyone with an idea to reach others.

Bird conservationists must capitalize on this medium but not just to reach other bloggers. Many websites positioned to promote the wonderful birding places we have do a terrible job of connecting. The National Wildlife Refuge System is a prime example of a whole series of websites that are mismatched and poorly displayed. Many barely illustrate why anyone would want to go there. If a curious person wants to enjoy nature in a new place yet can’t find out any real information online, they may not be able to find it anywhere else.

“…for customers, clients, partners, and society at large…”

Who are we creating value for? Bird conservation efforts benefit customers - those that hike, camp, photograph, etc. but aren’t “true” birders. Clients are those that profit off bird conservation or the byproduct of it: natural environments for people to enjoy (with their thousands of dollars worth of equipment).

Partners are us birders. We have a direct claim in the fact that there are places to go birding. But if we are unaware of bird conservation efforts in need of volunteers, citizen science projects, policy changes, etc. it makes acting on these impossible.

Lastly, bird conservation marketing requires value to society at large. There has been and always will be millions of people who don’t care and won’t help. Yet, society will always benefit more by having natural places, clean air and water, and wildlife diversity than without.

The new marketing definition can easily be applied to bird conservation but in order to save birds, we must all be proactive in our approach to reach some lofty goals.

“To truly be a bird conservationist is to preserve land not only at home but in places you may never visit.” -Eddie Callaway, Birdfreak

Steve Moore, a broadcaster and long-time birder, has launched a new online radio program called Birdwatch Radio. The program is freely available at BirdWatchRadio.com and offers information on birdwatching events, birding gear, and new happenings in the birding world. The show’s episodes can be downloaded through iTunes as a free Podcast as well.

The first episode reviews the Birdwatch America nature products trade show in Atlanta. Especially interesting is an interview with Clay Taylor at our favorite binocular company, Swarovski. The current plan is for once-a-month shows although we hope it will be more often than that, preferably at least once a week.

“My long-term plan is to actually schedule some live call-in programs that will allow you to join in the conversation with some of the personalities and experts we plan to host. Also, I want to have a section for some news updates from the world of birding, and perhaps a schedule of events, reviews of birding festivals, etc.” - Steve Moore

Birdwatch Radio, especially when live call-in programming takes place, will be great for passing on bird information to birders. So
check out BirdwatchRadio.com and you will love it!

As members of the American Birding Association (ABA) we are delighted to receive their wonderful magazine, Birding, 6 times a year. Besides Birding, the ABA also publishes North American Birds, Winging It, and several bird-finding guides. The ABA has also set up the guidelines for “countable” birds in the aptly named ABA Area. There is even a “Code of Ethics” produced by the American Birding Association which provides concise “rules” that all birders should definitely follow.

As a leading organization in promoting birding and bird conservation, the American Birding Association is still somewhat lacking in their internet presence. The following are three proposed improvements for the ABA’s website.
Continue reading →

The long tail is a term credited to Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine. He says that “products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough.”

Plain Chachalaca showing his long tail feathers

An example of the long tail is music downloads - iTunes can store and sell millions of songs, a small amount of which will be top sellers, but a much larger amount of which get much less downloads each. If iTunes only sold the best sellers, think of the business they’d lose, not to mention how worthless their service would be.

The yellow part of this graph is the long tail, all the thousands of “mini-hits”.

How about Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia created by people from all over the world. A project as huge as Wikipedia could never have been created by a handful of experts. Instead, by using a massive community of people, ranging from experts to amateurs, Wikipedia grew rapidly and provides something that no print encyclopedia can accomplish - thousands of obscure entries and the ability to provide updated information on any topic (as long as there are users to enter that info).

The long tail can be applied to birding in many ways too.

Field Guides
Currently, there are an ever increasing number of field guides to birds from bird-loaded places like Peru to unknown locales like Oman. While these are wonderful assets to traveling birders, they are often out-of-date and missing tons of information. This isn’t a knock on the hard work of the creators of the guides, just a fact on the difficulties of obtaining such data.

Enter the long tail. What if a system much like Wikipedia was created for a world bird guide. This guide would be created and edited by ornithologists and birders from all over the world. The data would grow as new information was obtained and would be open to anyone. Photos and videos could be added along with the scientific data and this would all be organized and searchable.

Breeding Bird Surveys and Bird Distribution
What about all the hundreds of birders who find birds and record their whereabouts? They might contribute the data to Rare Bird Alerts, state ornithological societies, the American Birding Association, etc. but how does this data reach the public? Cornell’s online bird guide, a wonderful source of information, shows the Blue Grosbeak’s range only reaching into southern Illinois. However, the bird is a confirmed nester in the northwestern part of the state.

If there was an online site for birders everywhere to enter their data, the information on bird distribution could be kept much better up-to-date providing a vastly improved resource for conservationists (as well as birders).

eBird
Now, there already is a wonderful source for entering bird sightings. eBird lets you submit sightings from whatever location you were at on a certain day. This information, taken together, provides a much bigger picture of where and when birds are at. However, there are some limitations on this - users can’t enter behavioral or habitat information among others. Plus, the data does not let you actually view maps or information on conservation status, etc.

The long tail has other possibilities involving birds and conservation. But the most important concept is that the more birders involved in adding data about birds, the better our hobby and the environment will be.