Marketing Series Celebrates Four Years of Impact

Center’s Telling Your Forest Story marketing series wraps after four years and 32 graduated wood products business.

The Northern Forest is home to hundreds of wood products businesses, each specializing in a unique market, audience, or tree species. Yet, all bring value back to the forest and rural economies across the region. In 2022, the Center’s Business Innovation Advisor Amy Robinson identified a marketing gap among these businesses. Many lacked the communications skills to incorporate the origin and sustainability story of their wood into their marketing strategies. She subsequently launched the Telling Your Forest Story marketing series to address this gap. The series ran for four years aiding 32 wood products businesses across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York.

Forest Stewardship Fundamentals

Through a series of workshops, online classes, and ongoing peer sessions, participants learned how to communicate where their wood comes from, how it is produced, and why it matters to customers. During each annual cohort, Telling Your Forest Story began with six online sessions that included industry experts. The series looked at the forest industry through four different perspectives: the big picture of the forest economy driven by data, stewardship and forest management and the complexity of articulating the working landscape, chain of custody and certifications and the impact on consumer perceptions, and how wood product businesses put their guiding principles into practice.

Unique Businesses & Unique Approaches

Following these sessions, each business received up to 10 hours of 1:1 assistance from a marketing consultant to apply these strategies and learnings effectively. By strengthening brand narratives and connecting businesses with technical expertise, the program empowered companies to reach broader audiences and differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

The Lumbery features a series of videos on its website designed to educate customers about the importance and benefits of using locally sourced wood. Through this content, the company highlights its strong commitment to fostering meaningful connections between people and place. The Lumbery emphasizes how choosing local wood supports the surrounding community, strengthens the local economy, and promotes responsible land management practices. By sharing these values, they encourage customers to see their purchasing decisions as a way to invest in sustainable forestry and the long-term health of both the land and the community.

Other businesses reinforced their brand identity by thoughtfully weaving their narrative into a wide range of marketing touchpoints. This included tangible materials such as certificates of authenticity that told the story behind each product, personalized thank-you letters that expressed appreciation while reiterating brand values, and in-store elements like card racks that conveyed mission and craftsmanship at the point of purchase. In addition, many extended this storytelling to digital platforms, such as using social media to consistently share their values, origin stories, and behind-the-scenes content.

Graduates of the Series

Maine

Zero Energy Homes (Millinocket) is a worker-owned cooperative that builds affordable, net zero energy homes.
Tanbark Molded Fiber Products (Saco) produces a molded fiber packaging material.

Bourgeois Guitars (Lewiston) produces guitars built with the same unwavering attention to detail, using the finest tone woods.
Timber HP (Madison) produces wood fiber insulation.
Lumbery (Cape Elizabeth) is a hardware/lumber store that sources locally milled wood.
Treeline, Inc. (Chester) offers dimensional hemlock lumber, crane mats, wood siding, firewood, and a log concentration yard.
LeHay’s Shaker Boxes (Embden) specializes in shaker boxes, carriers, and trays along with specialty lumber sales to other box makers across the U.S.
LandVest (Bethel) produces hardwood and softwood pulp wood, saw logs, and veneer from managing timber sales on client’s properties.

New Hampshire

Timberdoodle Farm and Sawmill (Stafford) is a sawmill processing all species because the markets rarely reflect the diversity of timber that is harvested from an ecologically responsible cut.
Jones Wood Products (Loudon) offers logging services and building materials.
JM Timber, LLC (Henniker) specializes in timber beams up to 36 feet long.

Vermont

Sylvacurl (East Hardwick) creates packaging material, which is a market for low-grade Aspen.
Vermont Wildwoods (Marshfield) created a proprietary method for intentionally curing and conditioning wood into spalted, wood.
Goodridge Lumber (Albany) is a sawmill, specializing in white cedar.
Better Wheel Workshops (Newfane) produces the Tree Sleeve, a solid wood hand-turned beverage coolie made from VT hardwood.
Rockledge Farm Woodworks (Reading) makes handcrafted custom furniture.
Vermont Butcher Block Company (Burlington) produces butcherblock countertops and cutting boards.
Treeline Terrains (Middlebury) produces custom 3D wood maps.
Kirby Mulch (Concord) produces bark mulch.
Vermont Natural Forest Products (Richford) produces wood pellets, wood shavings, sawdust, and bark mulch.
JK Adams (Dorset) produces cutting boards and kitchen products.
Gagnon Lumber Inc. (Pittsford) is a family-owned sawmill offering lumber, timbers, sawdust, chips, and bark mulch.
Silloway Maple (Randolph) is a maple syrup producer that uses firewood for evaporation.
Trees ROI (Hinesburg) is a tech start-up developing a tool to help the green industry to grow better trees.
Between the Trees Woodworking (Lowell) is a new start-up specializing in products for Veterans which include coin displays and other military centric wood products with wood sourced locally from own property.
Zampini Log and Land (Perkinsville) offers whole log and split firewood.
Maple Landmark (Middlebury) is a family-owned business offering toys, games, gifts, and custom specialties.
New Frameworks (Essex) creates double stud wood framed straw-structural insulated panels.
Merck Forest and Farmland (Rupert) produces lumber for their buildings and firewood for their woodstoves in each cabin.
Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers is a group of 22 independent furniture makers with workshops located throughout the state
Copeland Furniture (Bradford) is a family-owned business, exclusively sourcing North American grown and harvested solid hardwoods.

New York

Finger Lakes Wood Products, Dolgeville, New York, which manufactures baseball bat billets, is a supplier of framing for brick companies, and does custom sawing for home projects.

Forest Stewardship Fundamentals

Unique Businesses & Unique Approaches

Graduates of the Series

Maine

New Hampshire

Vermont

New York

Celebrating Wood Products Businesses

From Woods to Melodies: Bourgeois Guitar Sources Local Wood With New Sawmill Operation

Treeline Terrains Maps the World Using Locally Sourced Wood

Maple at the Heart of The Vermont Butcherblock Company

Amy Robinson