We're a fast-growing, family-owned, American forestry and firewood heating accessory company based in Vermont. Over the past four years that we've been in business, we've developed a solid understanding of both our core customer base as well as our industry overall. When we expanded from primarily manufacturing the LogOX 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool and its accessories, to introducing the ergonomic WoodOX Sling firewood carrier and Hearth Bin Firewood Rack in 2018-19 it further added to the complexity of our target market audience analysis and crossed over into a new (and larger) industry of firewood heating accessory products.

For this project, we'd like to segment our B2C retail customers into two groups, one for the LogOX 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool and one for the WoodOX Sling/Hearth Bin, and analyze their online behavior. While there is certainly the potential for overlap, not everyone who cuts down trees heats with firewood, and likewise, not everyone who heats with firewood cuts down their own trees.

This article from industrial design magazine Core77 gives a good overview of the founding of our company and the impetus for creating the LogOX out of necessity. With assistance from LogOX co-founders and using prior sales and traffic data, students will be asked to consider the driving motivations, "pain points," demographics, geographic locations, and other characteristics of potential customers who would be most likely to purchase these products. In doing so, the student team will develop a detailed "customer avatar" or "dream customer" and put themselves in that customer's shoes.

Upon defining the "dream customer" characteristics for these B2C segments, students will be asked to research and identify:

• 10+ top websites and forums they spend time on.
• 15+ active Facebook groups they participate in.
• 50+ influencers they follow on Facebook and Instagram
• 30+ podcasts they listen to.
• 20+ email newsletters they subscribed to.
• 20+ blogs they actively read.
• 25+ YouTube channels they subscribe to.

The follow-up question to this part of the exercise is delivering recommendations for how best to also market to individuals who find themselves in need of LogOX products, but don't normally subscribe to niche information platforms (i.e. homesteading, DIY, etc).

The intent behind this research is to identify not only a relatable customer profile with specific needs and other characteristics that we can tailor our message to, but also identify where they are most likely to congregate online and market our products directly to them in as cost-effective of a manner as possible. We are open to modifications and suggestions from the team and professor on the deliverables for this project in order to achieve the intent of these goals and build upon them.