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Master thesis Management Studies

Student: Ruben Versloot Date: 20-10-2017

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A business model for digital content providers

The case of Nature Today

Student: Ruben Versloot

Registration number: 900730883130

Thesis Management Studies - MST-80433

Supervisors: Kim Poldner & Arnold van Vliet

Institute: Wageningen University

Place: Wageningen

Date: 20-10-2017

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Abstract Digital content providers are still very dependent on advertisement incomes, while these incomes are

under pressure by the increasing usage of online advertisement blockers. This research aims to identify

the business model components that need improvement for digital content providers to be financially

self-sustainable. This is done through a case study analysis of Nature Today, a platform for nature news

from research institutes, nature organizations and NGO’s. A literature review on business models,

business model innovation, digital platforms and marketing of digital content was performed in order

to create a survey for the visitors of the Nature Today platform. Together with a competitor analysis

the conclusions were drawn that the platform could improve by expanding news articles, creating

more partnerships with nature organizations, connecting nature lovers to nature activities, adding

customizations options to the platform and improve social media strategy. These recommendations

lead to new revenue streams for the platform and justify the publishing fee asked to content partners.

From these outcomes was concluded that digital content providers should have a thorough

understanding of customers wants and needs, and should create a network of partners in the same

sector to be successful.

Keywords: Business models, business model innovation, digital content, digital content marketing,

Nature Today

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Executive summary Digital content providers have searched for new monetizing methods and business models to be

future-proof. Whereas they are mainly dependent on advertisement incomes, the growing use of

advertisement blockers shows that incomes from this source will only decline in the future. The

objective of this research was to provide digital content providers with a business model that can

create financially self-sustainable businesses. First, literature has been reviewed about the topics

of business models, business model innovation, digital platforms and marketing of digital

content. From this overview was decided to use the Business Model Canvas as a unit of analysis

for a case study. The case used for this research was Nature Today, an online platform where

nature news from research institutes, nature organizations and NGO’s is published. The platform

is mainly dependent on advertisement income and their affiliate web shop, but these do not

cover all costs. By using this case as a study of analysis, general conclusions are drawn that could

be applied by other digital content providers. From literature was concluded that information on

the value proposition, extensive customer knowledge, key resources and competencies, key

partners, competitors, revenue streams and personal factors are important for building a

successful business model. A survey was designed to gain insights on these parameters and

spread through the website of Nature Today, which resulted in a response of 1869 persons.

The results gave a clear overview of the demographic characteristics and the wishes and needs

of the visitors. This led to the conclusion that customer data is essential for successful business

models. The average age of the visitors is rather old with 59 years, they are highly educated,

mostly men, want to be informed – and learn new things – about nature and are interested or

already involved in nature monitoring, nature management and nature preservations activities.

This research suggests to develop the top-down platform as it is now, into a more social platform

– also indicated in this research as a nature economic ecosystem. This ecosystem will create

possibilities for new revenue streams, leading to more financial stability. Considering the nature

news articles, the focus should be on daily publishing new articles, of high quality and with a

preference for the topics of birds, butterflies, mammals or plants. Internalization of news articles

has potential and asks for international nature content partners, in the first place for topics that

can be related back to Dutch nature. Most importantly, the existing Dutch articles should stay,

meaning the platform will have to expand when focusing on international nature news. For new

activities the potential is high for organizing excursions, lectures, courses or webinars. These can

either be organized by Nature Today themselves or they could be the connector between natu re

lovers and nature organizations.

For financial reasons, the potential of the web shop is high and this could be exploited by

establishing new partnerships with retailers of nature products. Also, the visitors have shown to

be committed to the website and a donation button could help to increase revenues. Or to let

visitors pay a small fee to get access to webinars or activities of content partners. For customer

satisfaction it is recommended to track their wishes and needs every once in a while, for example

with an annual feedback survey. The trend of customization should also be implemented by

Nature Today by adding the possibility to personalize the website to their own preferences. This

could be done by adding an option that allows readers to only see news articles about certain

topics or species or from certain nature organizations. Finally, this research has elaborated on

the mutual benefit of the collaboration between Nature Today and their content partners.

Content partners can profit from possible employers and volunteers on the website, the possibility to

gather new members, to gather people for their nature activities and to learn more about the interests

in nature topics to write about. This justifies asking a fee to publish on the Nature Today platform.

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Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... iii

Executive summary ................................................................................................................................ iv

1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Case Introduction: Nature Today ............................................................................................ 2

1.2 Aim of research ....................................................................................................................... 3

1.3 Research questions.................................................................................................................. 3

2 Literature review ............................................................................................................................. 5

2.1 Business models for digital content providers ........................................................................ 5

2.1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5

2.1.2 Business Model Canvas of Nature Today ........................................................................ 6

2.1.3 Different types of business models ................................................................................. 6

2.1.4 Tools for digital content providers .................................................................................. 7

2.1.5 Value capture innovation ................................................................................................ 9

2.2 Digital platforms .................................................................................................................... 10

2.2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 10

2.2.2 Survival of digital platforms ........................................................................................... 10

2.2.3 Designing a digital platform .......................................................................................... 11

2.2.4 Internal vs. external platforms ...................................................................................... 12

2.3 Marketing digital content ...................................................................................................... 12

2.3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 12

2.3.2 Digital content characteristics ....................................................................................... 13

2.3.3 Opportunities for digital marketing ............................................................................... 14

2.3.4 Economic ecosystem ..................................................................................................... 14

2.4 Revenue methods .................................................................................................................. 15

2.4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 15

2.4.2 Monetizing methods ..................................................................................................... 15

2.5 Conceptual framework ......................................................................................................... 16

2.6 Analysis of successful digital content providers .................................................................... 18

3 Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 20

3.1 Case study .............................................................................................................................. 20

3.2 Data collection ....................................................................................................................... 20

3.2.1 Literature review ........................................................................................................... 20

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3.2.2 Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 21

3.2.3 Survey ............................................................................................................................ 21

3.3 Data analysis .......................................................................................................................... 22

3.3.1 Market - and competitor analysis ................................................................................. 23

3.4 Research framework ............................................................................................................. 24

4 Results and Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 25

4.1 Business Model Canvas of Nature Today .............................................................................. 25

4.1.1 Value proposition .......................................................................................................... 26

4.1.2 Key activities .................................................................................................................. 28

4.1.3 Key resources ................................................................................................................ 31

4.1.4 Customer relationship ................................................................................................... 33

4.1.5 Channels ........................................................................................................................ 34

4.1.6 Customer segments ....................................................................................................... 36

4.1.7 Key partners .................................................................................................................. 38

4.1.8 Cost structure ................................................................................................................ 40

4.1.9 Revenue streams ........................................................................................................... 41

4.2 Analysis of Nature Today’s competitive environment from survey data .............................. 44

4.3 Benefits for Nature Today’s content partners ...................................................................... 47

5 Conclusion and recommendations ................................................................................................ 50

5.1 Recommendations for Nature Today .................................................................................... 51

6 Discussion ...................................................................................................................................... 53

Limitations ......................................................................................................................................... 55

Recommendations for further research ............................................................................................ 55

References ............................................................................................................................................. 56

Appendix 1 – Survey questions ............................................................................................................. 59

Appendix 2 – AtlasTI .............................................................................................................................. 70

Appendix 3 – Survey results .................................................................................................................. 73

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1 Introduction Many digital content providers are still depending on the revenues from advertisements (Lacy 2009).

Digital content providers offer online information goods. A characteristic of an information good is that

it is expensive to produce or create, but easy and inexpensive to copy (Shapiro and Varian 1999). To

get compensation for their time and efforts to create content, many websites and online platforms

have built-in advertisements. On the other hand the latest year report by PageFair about the state of

the blocked web shows that the income from advertisements is under pressure. This is due to the use

of advertisement blockers (or adblockers). The use of adblockers for desktops and mobile devices is

growing explosively in Asia and it is the expectation that North America and Europe will follow. Global

growth in blocking advertisements led to 11% of people worldwide already using adblockers, which is

a growth of over 30% between December 2015 and December 2016 (PageFair 2017). Figure 1 shows

the history in the use of adblockers on desktops and mobile devices between 2009 and 2016.

Figure 1: Devices using AdBlock software on the open web (PageFair 2017)

These rising numbers are putting pressure on digital content providers who are dependent on the

income from visitors who see and click on advertisements. However, prospects show that adblocker

use will only increase and subsequently digital content providers will lose revenue. Research by the

Business Insider for American content providers predicts that this rise will have an enormous negative

effect on income. Whereas in 2016 the ad revenue loss was 3.9 billion, this is expected to rise to 12.1

billion by 2020 (Business Insider 2016). The main reasons for installing adblockers come from

interruptive advertisement formats and people’s concerns for getting viruses or malware on their

devices. Other motivations are slower websites and longer loading times, an excessive amount of

advertisements on websites and for privacy and tracking issues (PageFair 2017).

In this research the case of Nature Today will be used because they have to deal with the described

income problem. By identifying new possible revenue streams and options for business model

innovation for Nature Today this research will look at general business model possibilities for digital

content providers. This research will use a naturalistic generalization approach (Stake 1978), which

means that this case study will determine whether the outcomes for this specific case are also

applicable for other cases (Gomm et al. 2000). The following section will provide background

information on Nature Today and their business network.

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1.1 Case Introduction: Nature Today Nature today is an organization that offers a platform where researchers from over 15 nature

organizations and knowledge institutes publish stories on topical developments in nature. Nature

Today is a content-based website and platform to inform the public about the latest insights from

nature related researches. The vision of Nature Today is to “continuously and actively inform the public

and specific target groups on topical developments in nature people, so they will become more

connected with nature, they will get more knowledge on nature, they will better appreciate nature and

they will be more motivated to contribute to monitoring, management and preservation of nature”

(website Nature Today 2016). Nature Today is not a standalone platform but interacts with, and is

created by, multiple actors in the field of nature. Figure 2 provides an overview of the business

environment Nature Today operates in:

Figure 2: The business environment of Nature Today

Figure 2 shows the business environment where Nature Today operates in. At the bottom of the

environment are the researchers as they form the basis of the platform when they publish stories on

topical developments in nature. These researchers consist of academic researchers, experts working

at NGO’s and other nature organizations. Their stories are based on research outcomes, knowledge

from and observations in nature and other models. Nature Today shows the position that the platform

has in the business environment. Through the articles on the website or the media attention these

articles generate, Nature Today reaches a large public of nature enthusiastic. Part of this public are

employees of governments (local, provincial or national) and employees of companies looking for

information on nature. When these employees need more information on nature topics, for example

for business related questions, they can turn back to the researchers. Currently, Nature Today is

looking for new opportunities to broaden the supply of nature information. Two main ideas in the

developing phase being citizen science where people can contribute to research projects and an

application for location based nature information.

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With their reader’s base of 66,000 monthly visitors Nature Today has created a platform where people

interested in multiple different topics about nature are united. This gives Nature Today the influence

to inform the public better, by reaching a larger public through their website, than all these researchers

or nature organizations could by themselves. Within the website a special media-module is

implemented to quickly and efficiently inform journalists. With this module they have to generate even

more media-attention, which is also positive for the associated nature organizations. Nature Today is

currently looking at new ways to reach their goal: informing the public about topical developments in

nature to strengthen the bond between both of them. This is why the new ideas of citizen science and

location based nature information are in a developing phase.

1.2 Aim of research The reason for this research is the need for a revenue model for Nature Today. The platform has been

established by governmental subsidies, but the subsidy has ended and the platform should now stand

on its own feet. At this moment Nature Today mainly depends on website banners and their affiliate

web shop for revenues. One of the main problems is that these revenues are insufficient for the

website to be operational. Other income sources have not yet been implemented. For example,

researchers and nature organizations publishing on the platform can still freely do so. These

researchers do invest time in writing news articles for Nature Today, but profiting from the exposure

these articles generate is free.

Nature Today wants to grow to a more sustainable business model where income is generated through

multiple channels. This income problem is recognized by other digital content providers as many of

these content companies are still leaning on advertisement incomes, while these incomes are declining

(Lacy 2009). Also the market for online advertisement blockers is rapidly increasing each year, putting

even more pressure on content companies relying on advertisement incomes. The expectation is that

these incomes will only decline in the future. That makes that the main objective for this research is to

provide Nature Today with recommendations on how to improve their business model in a way that a

financially self-sustainable platform is created. This requires an analysis of the current competences,

network and client base of Nature Today as well as an analysis of other successful content providers.

To tackle these problems, multiple research questions have been drafted which are presented in the

following paragraph.

1.3 Research questions Main research question:

• What are the business model components that should be implemented or improved by digital

content providers, like Nature Today, to create a financially self-sustainable platform?

Sub research questions:

o What are existing business models for digital content providers like Nature Today?

o What does Nature Today’s competitive environment look like?

o What does the target audience of Nature Today look like in terms of demographic

characteristics and motivations?

o How does the relation between researchers, nature organizations, NGO’s and Nature

Today benefit the content partners?

As indicated in the main research question, the main focus will be on the business model as a whole

instead of multiple income sources. The reason for this is that business models are directly related the

digital age and takes into account all factors that have an influence on successful (and profitable)

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businesses (Zott et al. 2011). In the following chapter an overview of the existing literature will be given

about business models to understand the implications for the case of Nature Today.

The four sub research questions all partly provide the necessary information to answer the main

research question. The question about existing business models will look at best practices from other

successful business and identify the business model components that makes them successful. The sub

research question about the competitive environment will try to show the external influences on

performance, especially by identifying direct competitors. By identifying the unique selling point of

Nature Today their current position in the market is shown and other possible partnerships are

analyzed for future collaborations. The third question looks at the internal influences, from the current

users of the platform. Arnold van Vliet, founder of Nature Today, stated that he has limited deep

knowledge on the background of his visitors. Demographic characteristics, topics of interest and media

usage will be identified to see which changes need to be made to attract a larger audience or target

new user groups. The final research question is about the researchers who publish on the platform and

how they profit from this. These partners form the basis for the existence of the platform, but in

communication with Arnold van Vliet was said that these partners not all see the added value of Nature

Today. This research question aims to identify the direct and indirect benefits researchers gain from

this collaboration. Also the benefits that this collaboration brings Nature Today will be analyzed. At the

end of the research, suggestions for improvements will be given to improve the connection between

the two parties and to be more attractive to other nature organizations.

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2 Literature review

2.1 Business models for digital content providers

2.1.1 Introduction

The first part of the literature review is about business models for digital content providers. In this

section the definition of a business model, which business models are used and how business models

can be created, will be discussed. A generic approach is used to make it generalizable to other online

information and content providers. Newspapers who are publishing articles online, popular blogs or

sports websites are examples of digital content providers that use a business model to be successful

in the digital content sector. A description of these existing models will be given as well as business

innovation tools to improve or innovate existing models.

Before describing the business models that are available for platforms like Nature Today, first has to

be made clear what a business model exactly is. Research by Zott et al. (2011) has shown that

researchers use different definitions that not always go together well. Research about business models

in general has grown exponentially in the past two decades, because of the increased popularity of the

Internet. This rise in popularity has changed the way business models are used in literature and pushed

the number of studies done on the subject exponentially (Magretta 2002, Zott et al. 2011). In the first

part of the century business model research focused on completion, value capture and competitive

advantage. Nowadays this changed to a focus on cooperation, partnerships, joint ventures and a

central role for the customer (Magretta 2002, Mäkinen and Seppänen 2007).

A general confusion about business models is that they are related to the marketing strategy of a

company or to their corporate strategy. A business model includes a more complex set of network

relations and activities between multiple actors in the business environment than only marketing or

corporate strategy. A business model can, however, be a form of competitive advantage (Zott et al.

2011). A competitive advantage of digital content providers can be exploited when investing in one of

the three, or a combination of, components that have been introduced by Weill and Vitale (2013):

1. The content a company or organization publishes.

2. The experience a customer gets when visiting the company’s website.

3. The design of the platform.

It is not necessary to be a leader in all three components to be successful, which means that leadership

in one element could create significant revenue streams (Weill and Woerner 2013).

For this research the definition of a business model introduced by Morris et al. (2005) is used because

it has been cited often for similar studies. Their definition of a business model is: “a concise

representation of how an interrelated set of decision variables in the areas of venture strategy,

architecture, and economics are addressed to create sustainable competitive advantage in defined

markets”. According to the researchers there are six components where companies should focus on:

1. value proposition, 2. customer, 3. internal processes/competencies, 4. external positioning, 5.

economic model, and 6. personal/investor factors. The advantage of this definition is that it contains

multiple factors that influence business models. These factors give Nature Today the opportunity to

look critically at how they perform on each of these factors.

Summarized by Zott et al. (2011), most business model studies show that four common themes keep

coming back:

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1. The business model is used as a unit of analysis that goes further than the product it sells or

the network it operates in.

2. Business models explain how companies do their business.

3. The activities of a company play a central role.

4. Business models explain how value is created, not how it is captured.

2.1.2 Business Model Canvas of Nature Today

The business model canvas (BMC) was developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010). The BMC can

help businesses like Nature Today to define their values and actions. The model consists of nine

elements related to business performance. These are: key partners, key activities, key resources, value

proposition, customer relationship, channels, customer segments, cost structure and revenue. Each of

these elements contain a different aspect of a business model and per element an all elements

combined show the business strategy of a company or organization. In the results section the case of

Nature Today and the outcomes of the survey will be inserted in this canvas. This section will create a

description of the current situation and the preferred situation for Nature Today after an analysis of

the survey results.

2.1.3 Different types of business models

Weill and Woerner (2015) have identified four business models that can be applied by digital content

providers (Fout! Verwijzingsbron niet gevonden.3): omni-channel business, ecosystem driver, supplier

and modular producer.

Figure 3: Types of business models for online companies by Weill & Woerner (2015)

These business models are different in terms of:

• The way the business is designed: as a value chain or an ecosystem.

• How much knowledge the company has about their end consumers.

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The case of Nature Today is most likely to be placed in the supplier group, as their knowledge is the

end customer is incomplete and they are not yet part of a large economic ecosystem. They provide

their customers with knowledge gathered from other sources like researchers, nature organizations

and NGO’s. This brings a potential for loss of power when sources decide to set up their own

communication program and stop providing Nature Today with articles. Finally, it is relatively cheap to

produce information articles since no extra materials are used for the production. With this research

the platform hopes and needs to go to the ecosystem driver phase to be financially more stable.

2.1.4 Tools for digital content providers

A tool that can be adopted by digital content providers is designed by Bocken et al. (2013) and is called

the value mapping tool. This tool is used to develop new sustainable business models. It has three

aims: learning to understand positive and negative elements of the value proposition, to analyses

whether there are existing conflicting values between stakeholders and to identify opportunities in

redesigning the business model to overcome negative outcomes, so overall performance of the

business model is improved – mainly for the society and the environment. The value mapping tool is

presented as Fout! Verwijzingsbron niet gevonden.4:

The value mapping tool is used from the inside outwards, so the purpose is the starting point. After that the value captured, the value destroyed (negative social or environmental impacts) and value missed (failing to monetize existing assets, resources, networks or capabilities) are identified. Those three phases give insight in the failed value exchange of the current business model. As these three stages have been analyzed for all different stakeholders found in the outer ring, the value opportunities (creating new or improved products and services to customers) are analyzed. This phase looks at the

Figure 4: Value Mapping Tool by Bocken et al. (2013)

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opportunities to create new revenue channels to resolve the value that is currently being missed or destroyed. By analyzing all factors that are affected by an organizations performance, value can be created for the business environment as a whole. The process of moving from value proposition to value destroyed/value missed towards new opportunities has had specific attention in the research of Bocken et al. 2013. They have developed a value innovation tool to clarify these stages, which is presented as Figure 55. This tool was developed for four reasons:

1. There was no focus on sustainability (or social/environmental value) in multiple other business innovation tools.

2. A limited amount of these models focused on all stakeholders in the business environment. 3. Most tools only identify negative impacts of a business and the ways to reduce them, while

leaving out the opportunities these impacts create. 4. Innovation nowadays requires the development of new collaborations beyond the traditional

business environment.

Figure 5: Value innovation tool by Bocken et. al (2013)

In this model the stages are described from the value proposition, which plays the central role. In the

value destroyed phase companies should look at their negative social and environmental impacts and

how these can be re-conceptualized as missed value. In a favorable case these could be turned into an

opportunity for the new value creation. Also destroyed value could be changed directly into a value

adding option. In the value missed phase the assets, resources, networks and capabilities that are not

yet monetized, or are missing opportunities to capture value, should be analyzed and turned into new

business opportunities. In this way all former ways of doing business have been looked at,

reformulated or re-conceptualized into something that should be of added value for the business

model.

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2.1.5 Value capture innovation

Companies are trying to capture as much value as possible with their set of skills. When the current set of actions performed by companies is not working sufficiently anymore, an innovation in the process is necessary. Euchner & Ganguly (2013) designed a framework for companies to innovate their business model and is presented as Figure 66. By innovating, companies can create a new market for their products or disrupt their competitive advantage. This could mean creating new capabilities by companies, but only if this disrupts the existing competitive environment of a company (Euchner & Ganguly 2013). Furthermore, it is important that an innovation matches with the current business model and the company’s internal competencies in order for it to be successful (Chesbrough 2006).

Figure 6: Stages of business model innovation by Euchner & Ganguly (2013)

The purpose of the model is to reduce risks by learning through experiments with customers and partners before it is incubated in the market. The six stages have the following implications: 1. Demonstrate value creation – A clear view on how the innovation will create value for customers. To be successful, it is important to start with meeting customer’s demands and needs. Real world data is needed to answer questions like: what are our customers actually doing? And how much could we improve by the innovation in practice? 2. Generate business model options – A good business model will allow companies to capture a large part of the value created, in a way that is hard to replicate. There might be multiple good business models, the challenge for companies is to select the best one. These should have three characteristics: they are coherent (how does every part in the innovation work together?), they offer competitive advantage (what differentiates it from other and makes it interesting for customers?) and they provide some form of economic leverage (can it be produced on a large scale?). 3. Identify the risks for each option generated – Before a new innovation can be implemented, it has to be clear what the possible risks are. These risks can be divided in three types: business execution risks (costs of all items concerned with implementing the innovation), co-innovation risks (innovations that others need to create in order for a business model to work) and adoption risks (creating alignment among stakeholders before bringing the innovation on the market). Some risks cannot be controlled by innovators themselves, these are called ecosystems risks (Adner 2006).

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4. Prioritize the risks – all variables that could have an effect on success or failure of an innovated business model should be identified and quantified. Variables with the highest probability of happening should be dealt with first. 5. Reduce risk through business experiments – in this phase the innovation is tested in the real world with prototypes, simulated user experiences or other types of trials. The experiments should be designed in a way to validate assumptions that were made before the experiment was set up and they should reduce risks associated with the experiment. This set up is related to the ‘lean’ approach (Ries 2011) which states that crucial learning happens with real customers and it brings the innovation from the hypothesis phase to the proof that things work in practice. 6. Organize for incubation – the final phase is the incubation phase, in which the main goals are to demonstrate profitability and scalability in the market and to identify a business-building strategy.

2.2 Digital platforms

2.2.1 Introduction

In this chapter the current knowledge from literature about digital platforms will be described. Platforms in literature are described as “a set of subsystems and interfaces that forms a common structure from which a company can efficiently develop and produce a family of automobile products or consumer electronic devices” (Meyer and Lehnerd 1997, Muffatto and Roveda 2002). Not only the electronic device (mobile, laptop, tv) is important, also the software used and interface of the platform. Research by Clickfox (2011) has shown that 72% of customers would replace traditional communication channels with mobile apps. Nowadays there is even more time spend on apps then on websites (Business Insider 2013). Especially younger people state that a good digital experience with an organization is important. Weill and Woerner (2013) described that offering better performing online platforms creates a 8.5% higher net profit and a 7.8% higher growth rate than competitors lacking an advanced digital environment. Since comparing different platforms through search engines, comparison web sites or review sites became a lot easier, this will favor organizations with a well-designed platform in the future even further (Weill and Vitale 2013). Digital platforms have created new abilities for organizations to increase product variety, meet

customer and business needs and making technical advancements while still the economies of scale

are rising (Gawer and Cusumano 2014). Platforms are closely related to the concept of mass-

customization introduced by Pine (1993) which is the combination of the lower cost due to mass

production while still being flexible enough to customize products for individuals. Because of these

lower production and coordination costs, new opportunities for platforms as intermediaries are

created. Multiple examples of today’s largest online companies like Amazon or E-Bay have invested

tremendously in their platforms since it’s the place where their users’ needs are bundled (Brousseau

and Penard 2007). This is also because in the online world, brand names have become even more

important and they are seen as key factor of a relationship with customers. Nowadays brand names

are linked to personality, loyalty, and value of the products, services or information delivered. All of

this is communicated through a website (Ries and Ries 2000, Rowley 2004).

2.2.2 Survival of digital platforms

For the long-run survival of platforms Brousseau and Penard (2007) created a guideline about what their incentives should be, how they should create added value, how they can cover their costs and how they should deal with competitors. They state that the main goal of platforms should be to organize exchange and production, to assemble components and manage information and knowledge. This means the exchange of information and products between constructors, developers or writers and the customer. A platform can be developed in three ways:

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1. As a pure market intermediary like dating services or a market place. 2. As an assembler like social media. 3. As a knowledge provider like Wikipedia.

A combination of those components is also possible, as this goes for companies like Google and Amazon. For each of these three platform-types a scale was created. Figure 77 presents the scale developed by Brousseau and Penard (2007) for assemblers, which fits the case of Nature Today the best, because they combine the information from multiple nature organizations to create one large nature news database.

Figure 7: Assemblers platform identity by Brousseau and Penard (2007)

The two differentiating factors of this model are: the marketing method and the range of packages.

The marketing methods means how the content is priced. Free content is related with pollution

because there is no revenue to guarantee quality content, while this would be the case for fee based

content. The range of packages is about the variety of products offered by a company. A wide range

of topics and subjects would be placed on the right, while a very specialized focus is narrow and would

be placed on the left.

2.2.3 Designing a digital platform

When designing a digital platform, the focus should be on customer experience and the services a company offers. For being more successful as a platform than competitors it needs a competitive advantage, which means the ability to create more value than the others (Porter 1985). When a company focusses on creating customer value without using their competitive advantage, this will weaken their value proposition, leading to less growth potential (Euchner & Ganguly 2013). Customer value is created by three elements according to Weill and Woerner (2013): 1. Content - The quality of the content offered on a platform. 2. Packaging – how the user experience is delivered to all different types of digital platforms like

mobile phones, TV’s or laptops. 3. Infrastructure – The internal and external software platform that can be reached worldwide Especially the third element - how many people reach your platform - is important as platforms are known to have network effect. The more people start using a platform, the more valuable it becomes to owners and users. A growing network could also lead to new (complementary) investments and innovations of the platform. This creates another cumulative advantage in that the barrier for newcomers to enter the market becomes higher if existing platforms keep on innovating (Gawer and

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Cusumano 2014). However, this could lead to the innovators dilemma: having a successful client base comes from the company’s products and strategy it is currently selling and using. New innovations could lead to losing your loyal customer base when an innovation will not be favorably received (Christenson 1997). Eventually a platform could become some sort of an ecosystem where mutual beneficial relationships are built between members which gives rise to new opportunities in the sector. (Gawer and Cusumano 2014).

2.2.4 Internal vs. external platforms

Platforms have been used in many different fields: new product development, operations management, technology strategy and industrial economics (Meyer and Lehnerd 1997, Evans 2002, Eisenmann, Parker et al. 2006). However, all of these can be linked to two types of platforms: internal platforms that are company-specific and external platforms that are industry-wide (Gawer and Cusumano 2014). Internal platforms are described as the assets a company stores and that are organized in a common structure, so they can develop and create a stream of new and improved products (Muffatto and Roveda 2002). External platforms are products, services or technologies a company already produced, but which form the basis for outside firms to develop their own complementary products, services and technologies (Gawer and Cusumano 2014). Both platform link in the fact they provide a common ground for developing component and technologies. For external platforms this sometimes leads to the paradoxical situation were competition and collaboration sometimes occurs between the same actors. For instance, this happens in the case of Samsung producing chips for Apple IPhone while being there main rival in that same smartphone market. The platforms of large companies are often key resources in their economic ecosystem, but still highly dependent on innovations and investment from upstream suppliers, downstream customers and complementors. Not how much innovations takes place is important, but where these innovations take place (Adner and Kapoor 2010).

2.3 Marketing digital content

2.3.1 Introduction

The third part of the literature about business models for digital content providers is the marketing

part. In the upcoming sections the general knowledge about digital content and the marketing of

business models will be described. One of the hardest things for monetizing online information can be

explained from the definition of digital content: bit-based objects distributed through electronic

channels. This means that for the marketing of these bit-based objects the entity and the delivery are

digital (Koiso-Kanttila 2004, Swatman, Krueger et al. 2006). This has implications for traditional media

and publishing industries because the marketing for this content is different from traditional marketing

practices, which is explained in Figure 88. The definition used in this research for digital content

marketing is: the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating, and satisfying

customer requirements profitably in the context of digital content, or bit-based objects distributed

through electronic channels (Rowley 2008). This new marketing method needed is creating new

opportunities for companies while on the other hand is wrecking traditionally successful business

models. This process is described as disruption (Weill and Woerner 2015).

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Figure 8: Differences traditional media and online media by Rowley (2008)

2.3.2 Digital content characteristics

Before the possible revenue streams from digital content can be analyzed, it is necessary to clarify the

characteristics of digital content. There have been multiple researches done by Eaton and Bawden

(1991), Freiden, Goldsmith et al. (1998) and Koiso-Kanttila (2004) about these characteristics. Rowley

(2008) collected these outcomes and translated them to characteristics of digital content:

1. Value is contextual – the value of digital content is dependent on the context and how it is used. It is dependent on the willingness of users to pay for it and it is hard to predict how this value will change over time.

2. Reproducibility and multiplicability – digital content is not lost when multiplied, but it might reduce its economic value. It is also multipliable as it’s ‘consumption’ will not lead to loss of the product. The same goes for reproducing information, leading to illegal versions of the same information, which has led to literature links between digital content and intellectual property rights (Fotopoulos, Vassiliadis et al. 2004, Umeh 2007).

3. Interactivity – content is acquired to be integrated with information from other sources to improve decision-making, plans and actions or create improved information products. On an individual level it is linked to the learning process and improving cognitive abilities.

4. Repackage-ability – digital content is available in different forms, like text, images or videos. They can be accessed via different databases through multiple web pages. It is difficult to see whether content is original or authentic, as much content is an improved version of existing information like academic articles. The core is always information, but it comes in different functional forms.

5. Delivery and technology – the technology is key in delivering content between two actors. Delivery can only be achieved when technology between both actors is sufficient in terms of hardware specifications and network possibilities.

6. Perishability – digital content does not deteriorate over time, while the medium through which it is spread could. The value might decrease when new information is introduced, replacing the old ideas.

7. Homogeneity – digital content is very homogeneous, as each copy is identical to the earlier one and the original.

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8. Inseparability – digital content is a good, more than a service, because it is produced, stored (on a pc or server) and transported, while it can exist without being consumed.

9. Tangibility – content itself is intangible, while it could be stored on a USB or computer what would be the tangible part.

2.3.3 Opportunities for digital marketing

Companies in different fields have been struggling with the move from offline to online business marketing. Around 32% of sales in traditional markets is pressured by the digital market (Weill and Woerner 2015). Threats also offers opportunities, because companies selling over half of their products via online channels, and have a good understanding of their target audience, experience 27% higher revenue margins than market competitors. From this can be concluded that digital marketing is especially successful in combination with knowledge of your end customer. Customer knowledge consists of their names, addresses, demographics, IP-address, purchase history and (most importantly) their upcoming life events (Weill and Woerner 2015). The upcoming digitization offers opportunities to increase the relationship with the customer and to increase cross-selling. Cross-selling is the opportunity to sell an additional product or service to an existing customer. The disadvantage of digitization is the threat of competitors having a better understanding of these end customers, which makes them able to address their products and services better to the same customers (Li, Sun et al. 2005).

To get more knowledge about end customers a company needs to know their opinion. Whether they are satisfied, what their wishes are and how they could use big-data to improve knowledge on their own customers. This creates a business model where a company does not try to convince customers to buy, but where a company tries to meet customer needs (Weill and Vitale 2013). Many studies have shown that superior customer value is of major importance for ensuring business success. This means that digital content providers who are able to assist customers in formulating value expectations and associations will profit the most (Porter 1996, Reichheld, Markey Jr et al. 2000). This is however not an easy process as online environments are constantly changing due to technological developments, which offers new possibilities for customizing and accessing digital content (Rowley 2008).

2.3.4 Economic ecosystem

Companies can improve by becoming some sort of an economic ecosystem with all involved parties within and outside the company and their partners in the sector. The main goal is to be the leader in a sector before main competitors. This requires a good brand name, meeting customers’ needs and receiving good customer recommendations. Secondly, companies need partnerships with complementary product and service providers. Also payment and delivery providers can be a part of this. Furthermore, companies need to identify their core business (unique selling point) and making this easily available for customers and partners. And finally, make compliance a competence because digitization raises questions about online privacy issues and cyber threats and the possibility of failing digital channels (Weill and Woerner 2015). According to (Rowley 2008) digital content providers should look for strategies to bind users to their content and create a community. Digital content managers need to:

1. Create a network with all stakeholders in the same value chain to manage the channel at both operational and user experience level.

2. Keep developing digital content places and platforms where customers are active. 3. Pricing strategies need to be employed that have a customer value perspective instead of a

producer or marketplace perspective. At last branding should not be forgotten, because customers link quality and value of information to the company that spreads the information. This creates a challenge for a company’s communication department.

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2.4 Revenue methods

2.4.1 Introduction

Several researchers have tried to investigate models for monetizing Internet websites. The most well-known business models include advertising, but the incomes from advertising are declining (Lacy 2009). Other business models for websites are divided by Clemons (2009) into two categories: The first category sells products, experiences, content or services and they profit from these sales. The other category gives access to the users and charges them for it. As a column by the Economist (2009) wrote: “there is a need for paying for content instead of leaning on advertising incomes. It is impossible that content will keep on being freely available, because writers need income for their stories and advertising doesn’t seem to give that. This will remain extremely difficult because advertisements have three disadvantages (Clemons 2009): 1). Overall consumers do not trust advertisements, 2). Consumers do not want to see advertisements. This can be derived from the growing numbers of adblocker users. This is even more applicable for the mobile market were nowadays a total of 419 million people are blocking ads, totaling a 22% of all smartphone users (Pagefair 2016). Consumers do not need advertisements as online information about the products they are interested in is freely available.

2.4.2 Monetizing methods

This asks for new monetizing methods, Clemons (2009) advices three ways of creating income:

• Selling real things (examples: Bol.com or Amazon)

• Selling virtual things (examples: in game accessories or information for virtual communities)

• Selling access (examples: location based information or a second layer in a website).

Nature Today is most likely to be linked to the ‘Selling Access’ part, when they want people to pay for their content. Clemons divides two monetizing models for this: pay per view and pay per subscription. Examples of pay per view is Blendle, the company where a single news article can be bought. Most other content sites use subscription models, where users get full access to all content and features of that platform for a monthly or yearly payment. When promoting these subscription models Pauwels and Weiss (2008) suggest for first time product payment methods to go for temporary subscriptions, preferably monthly over yearly. The main reason being that the customer is not used to being committed to pay for content and are not willing to be committed for a year. This matches with the idea that minimal commitment leaves the possibility open for users to try and evaluate the content (Rogers and Shoemaker 1971). However, moving to a paid business models, does indirectly lower your advertising incomes as visitors numbers will decrease, while subscription incomes will be higher (Pauwels and Weiss 2008). The number of paid subscribers is dependent on multiple variables like:

• Consumer characteristics (price sensitivity, perceived content value).

• Competitive characteristics (market concentration, content overlap, pricing schemes).

• Company characteristics (content restriction, marketing strategy).

When a company decides to move to paid content this slows down the growth of free users directly, which reduces the effectiveness of marketing strategy in generating new free users. This marketing strategy is the major revenue component in stimulating new subscriptions (Pauwels and Weiss 2008). Companies can, according to Pauwels and Weiss (2008), expect lower revenue from making subscriptions paid when they:

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1. Make the move from free to fee before free subscriptions has showed momentum, this is the time when free subscriptions are smoothing.

2. Set prices higher than the consumers’ willingness to pay. 3. Are competing with a dominant competitor with superior content quality, lower prices or better

end customer knowledge. 4. Charge fees for all (previously free) content. 5. Companies do not invest in marketing communication to convince free users to pay or to attract

new (potential) paying members. To be able to profit from an idea or informational content it should meet two conditions: it should be able to extract value from a unique asset and it should not be easy to duplicate. When it comes to content suppliers like newspapers or Nature Today the unique assets are the fact-checking and reputation of that certain source. On the other hand, the news can easily be taken over by other sources leaving out the other critical aspect of profiting from the idea (Teece 1986). Clemons (2009) suggests a short-term copyright to tackle this point. To calculate the actual value of the content there are six drivers of digital content value: 1. price, 2. accuracy, 3. timeliness, 4. completeness, 5. appeal and 6. interactivity. The pricing is dependent on what is offered for the money: either a transfer of ownership, access to content or a license to use a certain product or knowledge for a specific period of time (Rangan and Adner 2001).

2.5 Conceptual framework The literature described in the previous sections gave an overview of all relevant theories for digital

content providers. This has been divided into four different topics: business models, digital platforms,

digital content marketing and revenue streams. This section will provide a simplified new framework

with all most important elements of the described theories. The framework that is created will be used

as a glass through which the problem of Nature Today is researched. In this way, it also sets clear

boundaries to the study and shows in which ways these theories are relevant for the case.

The first section described the elements that a business model consists of. The definition of Morris et

al. (2005) and the Business Model Canvas of Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) both identified elements

that are important for a business model. The following figure shows the comparison between both

models:

Figure 9: Business model elements compared

This figure shows that all elements from the business model canvas are more detailed. The canvas focusses on internal competencies that can be influenced by the company itself, whereas Morris et al. also takes external factors, like competitors, into account. Also personal factors are not included in

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BMC, while this is an important factor for Nature Today. The current team behind the platform is limited and radical business model changes will have consequences for the founders. Whether proposed changes are implemented is their decision. The general analysis in the results section will make use of the elements of the BMC, since these are more detailed. The personal factors will be added within the BMC elements and for the external competitors a specific research questions is created. The results section will identify the current situation for each element and the preferred new situation.

From all theories a conceptual framework can be created. This framework is presented as figure 11 and shows how theory merges into results and recommendations.

Figure 10: Conceptual framework

The described theories for business models and digital content form the basis of the analysis. Both theories have led to a description of relevant elements, which have been processed in the survey questions. With the outcomes from these elements a sketch of the current situation can be created. After that the business model innovation tool of Bocken et al. (2013) is introduced, which looks at the described elements and analyses whether Nature Today currently misses value or destroys value and looks at the opportunities that arise for new value creation. After this analysis a new business model for Nature Today can be created. The new business model should always measure up to three things according to Euchner and Ganguly (2013): it is coherent with the current characteristics of Nature Today, it should be clear how the users profit from the innovation and it should be possible to produce it on a large scale. This is why the improvements might need testing before they are fully implemented to see the response of the customers.

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2.6 Analysis of successful digital content providers In the digital landscape there are multiple examples of companies who have succeeded in

implementing a business model that created stable revenue over the past years. These companies can

be a major inspiration for new start-ups, but also are perfect examples for companies that are looking

to improve their current business model like Nature Today. This section will identify the similarities

between the most successful companies and Nature Today, what competences these companies have

and how the business model of Nature Today has to be adjusted and the competences implemented

to be more successful.

The digital magazine EContent summed up the top 100 most successful companies in the digital

content industry. During the analysis of these companies and their competitive advantages, a common

ground with Nature Today was searched for. In total there were twelve categories where the top 100

companies were divided into and Table 1: Top 100 companies divided per categoryTable 1 shows how

often each category was mentioned in the list (EContent 2016):

Table 1: Top 100 companies divided per category by EContent

Category Times mentioned

Web Content Management 21

Big Data 18

Distribution & Delivery 16

Content Creation 15

Content Translation, Localization & Globalization 13

Digital Marketing Technologies 13

Analytics 11

Mobile content 9

Online Video 6

Social Media 6

Content Commerce 3

Most companies are active in the web content management sector. Web content management is a

software program or system that helps companies to manage and adjust websites in an

understandable format so digital content can easily be published and overseen. Companies in this

sector created tools for all different types of companies to make their content more attractive for their

customers. These tools help companies to connect their content to customer’s needs. Most popular

method for this is personalized content creation. This means that visitors of a website can either

personalize it for their own wishes or that the website adjusts itself when a visitor searches for some

items more often. What this shows is that personalized and customized websites or platform are

deemed to be very important by successful companies.

The second most common category is big data, successful companies gather a lot of information about

their customers. This data is turned into concrete action plans for companies, making big data an

essential part of every larger and successful company. The top 100 companies in the big data are

mostly occupied with developing tools to make the big data visual. With this visual interpretation

companies should be able to improve marketing, product development and decision-making. This

shows that a constantly keeping track of users wishes, preferences and satisfaction is an essential

element of successful businesses.

The third most common category is distribution and delivery. Customers are getting used to being

served everywhere at any time, which creates logistic challenges for companies to get their products

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on time to consumers. This is also the case for the sector of Nature Today; the publishing industry.

People expect new news articles daily, expect the quality to be high and without mistakes and to be

delivered to them through multiple media channels. The large companies show that investing in all

these channels is a key activity for being successful.

Conclusion

Looking at the most successful companies in the digital content industry we can see that everything

evolves around customers. All the categories that Econtent Magazine used can be linked to increasing

customer knowledge and customer satisfaction. This is in line with the trend that companies evolved

from being product centered to customer centered (Weill and Vitale 2013). For Nature Today this

means that they should track customer needs and customer satisfaction which should lead to products

and services that better connect to their needs. It could also widen the products and services range

Nature Todays offers. Finally, the way in which news articles are presented, the content creation part,

appears to be increasingly important. News articles should be interesting to read, but the platform

should also be appealing to visit. Nature Today should find the perfect balance between delivering

qualitative news articles, attractiveness in their website and clarity in the navigation through the

platform.

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3 Methodology The previous chapters introduced the theoretical background of this research, the background of the

case study and the drawn research questions. The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the

research methods, which are used to answer these research questions. The ultimate aim of the

research is to provide Nature Today with a financially self-sustainable business model. All methods

contributing to the solution of this aim are described in this chapter. The introduction chapter already

mentioned the case study analysis which will be adopted for this research. The first part of this chapter

will describe this adopted method in more detail. The second section introduces the data collection

methods, including literature review, interviews and the survey. The third section involves the data

analysis methods including the market- and competitor analysis.

3.1 Case study For this research the case of Nature Today will be used. Nature Today is an online platform where the

latest nature research insights are published. Through Wageningen University I heard that the platform

had problems with gathering enough revenue streams. With this is mind, the general problems in the

online information industry were connected with the income problem of Nature Today and concluded

that they would be a relevant case study. A case study has the ability to overlook and understand cases,

processes and different dynamics within a unit of study (Kumar 2011).

Stake (1978) also argued that case studies do have a natural basis for generalization to other cases,

because it is found to be a direct and satisfying way of adding experience on a subject and improve its

understanding. This is what he calls naturalistic generalization, the ability to apply knowledge and

outcomes from one case to another similar case. In this specific research this would be other digital

content providers like online newspapers, sports websites and blogs. The limitation with this approach

however is that single members often do not represent all members of a group. This could be

overcome by describing all relevant and necessary elements of the case, so specific elements of the

case might be generalizable, instead of the whole case (Stake 1978). For this research the reason for

choosing the case of Nature Today comes from the availability of data and the direct link with the

founder of the platform. With the help and knowledge from Arnold van Vliet, the founder of Nature

Today, this research has the possibility to give all necessary insights about this case. This creates more

relevant and generalizable results and increases external validity.

3.2 Data collection This research used a quantitative approach, because the data was gathered in a (semi-)structured way

to a large sample group and will be used to generalize to a larger group of content providers. Multiple

methods were adopted to gain insights on the topic. This approach can be seen as a positivism

approach, as the quantitative methods have a good reliability and representativeness. With the use of

a case study I hope to discover patterns and regularities, which are applicable by other content

providers (Denscombe 1998). This section will describe all methods that were used to collect the data,

how this data was approached and how it was processed. Each method is linked to a specific research

question. The three data collection methods were a literature review, interviews and a survey.

3.2.1 Literature review

The first step in pursuing data for this research is by performing an academic literature review to analyze the existing qualitative and quantitative knowledge in the research field. The academic literature search strategy was focused on identifying the relevant subjects and research concepts like business models for digital content providers, business model innovation, digital platforms and digital content marketing. These concepts were presented in a literature review and linked to the case of Nature Today in the discussion section. To make sure that no valuable data was overlooked, multiple

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scientific databases from Wageningen University were used, like Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus, CAB Abstracts and LexisNexis. When answering the research questions, the first sub-question was answered by literature review only. An in-depth analysis of business models identified the different components a business model is made up of, which were presented in the conceptual framework. These business model elements, together with the parameters of digital content, have been the basis for innovating the current business model of Nature Today.

3.2.2 Interviews

Small semi-structured interviews were held with people currently not visiting the Nature Today website. In the first phase of the research, people from all different demographic backgrounds were approached to help with this research. To gather a differentiated group, the church where I used to go to was used. This resulted in a sample population with different demographic characteristics like age, educational background and current field of work. These interviews were held to form a basis for the creation of a survey. This interview asked for a first impression about the Nature Today website and asked participants to notify everything that stood out for them. With the answers given about the first experience with Nature Todays website and their analysis of possible improvements, extra questions or extra answer options were added to the survey. The reason for doing these kind of interviews was to prevent researchers tunnel vision about the website. It is easy to overlook things when you have seen a website very often. Also different views on what a good platform should look like were taken into account with these interviews. In total 20 people were interviewed for an average period of 5-10 minutes per interview, table 2 gives a description of demographic characteristics of the interviewed group. Table 2: Anonymized data of interviewed people

Male, 25, HBO, Bank & Insurance Male, 71, MBO, Agriculture

Male, 21, HAVO, Student Female, 69, HBO, Healthcare

Female, 49, HBO, Education Male, 51, HBO, Education

Female, 72, HBO, Education Female, 48, HBO, Culture

Male, 74, MBO, Construction Male, 58, WO, Finance

Female, 54, WO, Culture Female, 55, WO, Healthcare

Female, 23, WO, Student Female, 18, VWO, Student

Male, 55, HBO, Business Male, 15, HAVO, Student

Female, 84, VMBO, agriculture Male, 46, WO, Government

Female, 44, WO, Healthcare Male, 20, VWO, Student

3.2.3 Survey

The majority of the data collected in this research is done through a survey, because a large part of this research is about getting to know the visitors of Nature Today. The survey questions had to make clear who they are and what their wishes and needs are. Also the connection between researchers and the companies and governments was taken into account. Arnold van Vliet hoped that by gaining media attention through the platform, governments and companies would find the their way back to researchers when do need them to do projects. The survey tries to find out whether this relation is really established through the platform. The survey was spread through the website of Nature Today and was also linked to the weekly newsletter, which has 13.000 subscribers. The survey had 56 questions in total and the average time spent on the survey was between 15 and 20 minutes. Although this is a fair amount of time, 1869 persons responded to the survey. From these people 1523 completed the whole survey. The survey itself was created through the website of Qualtrics, because they offer a tool to easily implement different kind of questions and answering methods. For some questions only the fully completed

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surveys were used. The reason for this was because the most important demographic characteristics were asked at the end of the survey. Without these characteristics the other answers had less value, and because the number of respondents was high the validity was not jeopardized. The reason for putting the demographic characteristics at the end was because people are sometimes reluctant to give personal information, and are more likely to do so when they have already spend a decent amount of time answering other questions. The survey questions can be found in Appendix 1 – Survey and the answers to these questions are presented in Appendix 3 – Survey results. The respondents were nearly all visitors of the Nature Today website, giving a clear image of all different user and age groups. The importance of gathering information from all different age and user groups comes from the possibility that outcomes might differ considerably per group. With the extensive knowledge on the visitors of Nature Today, the owners of the platform will be able to meet customer needs better. This information is also interesting for organizations publishing on Nature Today, as it gives them the insight how to reach more nature lovers with their news articles. The outcomes of the survey can directly be used for answering research question two and three about the competitive environment and the target audience. Also insight were gained to answer the fourth research question about the benefits for Nature Todays partners.

3.3 Data analysis The data that was collected from the literature review, interviews and survey was enormous and needed an analysis strategy. The main analysis was done in a coding program called Atlas.ti 8.0. In this program all qualitative data was inserted and labelled with a specific code. These were the first order categories as defined by Gioia (2013). Appendix 2 shows screenshots of the program in use, including how was coded, for which questions and what a tree for a specific research question looks like. As the survey had multiple questions with an open answer possibility, the number of open answers was extensive. With these answers clustered it was easier to recognize relations between given answers or to channel answers given to a certain research question. In this way all concepts related to a certain business model element of Nature Today could be grouped, which provided me with a clear overview of the situation. This was done by assigning the first order codes to specific research questions. These research questions were then assigned to the elements of the business model. For the analysis of the results the Business Model Canvas was used as a guideline. Table 3 shows the division of each research question to a certain BMC-element, which helped to structure the answer building in the results chapter.

Table 3: Division of survey questions to BMC-elements

BMC Elements Survey questions

Value proposition

Waarom bezoekt u Nature Today.com? Hoe vaak geeft u natuurwaarnemingen door? Bent u betrokken bij natuurbeheer en natuurbeleid?

Key activities Welk vrijwilligerswerk doet u op het gebied van natuur? Bent u betrokken bij natuurbeheer/natuurbeleid? Hoe? Zou u door Nature Today geïnformeerd willen worden over (natuur)activiteiten, georganiseerd door de organisatie die berichten schrijven op Nature Today.com? Zo ja, welke activiteiten? Zo nee, waarom niet? Over welke onderwerpen zou u webinars willen bekijken? Over welke bestaande natuurbeleid/ natuurwaarneming/natuurbeheer onderwerpen zou u berichten op Nature Today.com willen zien? Wat voor onderwerpen over natuur in het buitenland zou u interessant vinden om te lezen? Welke natuurberichten mist u nog op Nature Today?

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Key resources Over welke categorieën leest u het liefst natuurberichten? Hoe overzichtelijk vindt u de website van Nature Today? Hoe vaak geeft u natuurwaarnemingen door? Van welke soortengroepen? Hoe overzichtelijk vindt u de website van Nature Today? Welke natuurberichten mist u nog op Nature Today? Op welke manier geeft u weleens waarnemingen door? Op welke manier helpt de informatie op NatureToday.com u met het doen van waarnemingen? Over welke van de onderstaande natuurwaarneming onderwerpen zou u berichten op NatureToday.com willen zien?

Customer relationship

Zou u natuurberichten lezen als ze alleen in het Engels beschikbaar zijn? Hoe vaak bezoekt u Nature Today.com? Zou u door Nature Today geïnformeerd willen worden over (natuur)activiteiten, georganiseerd door de organisatie die berichten schrijven op Nature Today.com? Zo ja, welke activiteiten? Zo nee, waarom niet?

Channels Hoe weet u van het bestaan van Nature Today.com? Op welke social media bent u actief? Bent u geabonneerd op de nieuwsbrief van Nature Today? Via welke kanalen wilt u geïnformeerd worden door Nature Today?

Customer segments

Wat is uw geslacht? Wat is uw leeftijd? Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Waar haalt u uw natuurinformatie vandaan? Bij wat voor organisatie bent u werkzaam?

Key partners Waar haalt u uw natuurinformatie vandaan? Welke natuurapps gebruikt op dit moment? Welke vogelapps? Van welke organisaties bent u lid/donateur? Wat voor onderwerpen over natuur in het buitenland zou u interessant vinden om te lezen op Nature Today?

Cost structure

Revenue streams

Bent u zich bewust van de advertenties op de website van Nature Today? Bent u bekend met de webshop van Nature Today? Voor welke productcategorieën doet u wel eens online/mobiel aankopen? Zou u bereid zijn een financiële bijdrage te geven aan Nature Today om het in stand te houden? Zo ja, hoeveel zou u jaarlijks bereid zijn te doneren? Over welke onderwerpen zou u webinars willen bekijken?

3.3.1 Market - and competitor analysis

Information was collected about the competitors and potential partners in the business environment. With an analysis is shown what the possible competitors and partners are, what is already provided on the market and where market possibilities can be fulfilled by the content from Nature Today. From the competitors was analyzed: what they are doing differently, which types of competitors they are targeting and through which channels they are active. This analysis gave a clear image of the saturation of the market for nature content. Also possible partners were revealed, as collaboration between parties with similar end goals as Nature Today might increase the reach of the platform.

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3.4 Research framework In the previous chapters and sections the case, the theories and the methods for this research are

introduced. The research strategy for answer building can be summarized in a research framework.

The research framework consist of four parts: the theoretical part in which the relevant literature is

discussed and analyzed. The empirical part which is the qualitative and quantitative research methods

for data collection. The analysis part where the outcomes of the data collection are discussed and the

final part is the concluding part where all results together and an answer will be given to the main

research question. In the following figure is depicted which elements are included in each stage and

how these elements follow up.

Figure 11: Research framework

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4 Results and Analysis This chapter will describe the results gathered from the survey. These results will be connected to the

current business model of Nature Today, to see in which segments the platform needs to improve for

a sustainable and future-proof business model. In the analysis part, answers will be given to the

drafted research questions. The first chapter will use the Business Model Canvas to picture the current

business model of Nature Today. Multiple survey question were assigned to each canvas element to

further explore the possibilities of that element. These questions will show the business model

innovation for Nature Today. In the end a new version of the business model canvas will be presented.

This new version represents the favorable situation where Nature Today should grow to, to have a

future-proof business model.

4.1 Business Model Canvas of Nature Today The literature review already explained the use of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) developed by

Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010). The canvas helps businesses like Nature Today to define their values

and actions. For each element in the canvas an analysis was done on the current situation. A summary

of this analysis can be found in Figure 12, which describes the business model of Nature Today before

the insights of the survey. In this chapter the results from the survey are presented for each BMC

element, analyzed and a conclusion is drawn what these insights mean for the future of Nature Today.

For this analysis all survey questions were assigned to a certain BMC element. The exact division of

question was presented in the methodology section. Through an analysis of the website and

conversations with the owner of the platform, Arnold van Vliet, the current business model was

created.

Figure 12: Business Model Canvas of Nature Today before survey

Each BMC element has certain characteristics assigned. In this chapter each element is discussed

separately and suggestions for improvement are made from survey outcomes. This analysis starts with

a value proposition: what is it about the ‘product’ Nature Today offers that creates value for their

customers. It is known that the platform is popular under nature lovers, but which topics are most

relevant and what kind of value they attract from these topics is not yet known.

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4.1.1 Value proposition

The value proposition is the core element of each business. It contains a company’s competitive

advantage, where they are able to create value for their customers in the areas where market

competitors are falling short in capturing that value. There are nine elements that have an influence

on the value proposition: newness, performance, customization, design, brand name, price, cost- and

risk reduction, usability and accessibility. When these nine elements would be combined in one value

proposition for Nature Today it would look like: To daily present nature news from multiple nature

organizations, in an attractive online environment to a large group of nature lovers.

The value proposition is related to the customer segments, also referred to ‘the public’ in the

introduction. The questions to answer are which products and services add value to the customer, how

do these products relieve a client’s ‘pain’ and which ‘gains’ do they provide to the customer. The

current value proposition comes very close to the mission and vision of Nature Today: “continuously

and actively inform the public and specific target groups on topical developments in nature people, so

they will become more connected with nature, they will get more knowledge on nature, they will better

appreciate nature and they will be more motivated to contribute to monitoring, management and

preservation of nature”. This vision can be linked to three survey questions:

- Why do you visit Nature Today.com?

- Are you involved in nature monitoring activities?

- Are you involved in activities related to nature management and - preservation?

The answers to the question about reasons to visit Nature Today were:

1. General interest in nature (85.48%)

2. To stay informed about what happens in nature (78.86%)

3. To increase own knowledge about nature (73.42%)

4. To enlarge knowledge on specific species (42.51%)

5. To follow what nature organizations are doing (33.9%)

Obviously this shows that nature lovers with a preference for up-to-date nature news are attracted to

the website, which can be seen as Nature Today’s target audience. As ‘increasing knowledge’ implies,

the readers are on the website to learn something new. New insights from research leads to new

knowledge, which is in line with the current professional approach to nature news. The ‘general

interest’ that was mentioned shows that the value proposition should focus on general nature lovers,

so that the topics covered are differentiated. In summary, people mainly visit the website because of

their love for nature and the wish to learn more about nature. This connects to the first part of the

vision in about continuously and actively informing the public on topical developments nature.

The second part of the vision is about the appreciation of nature and the wish to stimulate and mobilize

visitors to contribute to nature monitoring, management and preservation. To see whether there is a

link between the two factors (knowledge about nature and being actively involved in nature activities)

several survey questions have to be connected. When the reasons for visiting the Nature Today

website were compared between people who never participate in monitoring activities and those who

do at least once a month, the following results came out:

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Table 4: Visitors incentives and monitoring activities

Why do you visit Nature Today? Involved in monitoring activities

Not involved in monitoring activities

Average percentage

General interest in nature 85.38% 87.27% 85.98%

To stay informed about what happens in nature 86.02% 68.76% 79.57%

To increase own knowledge about nature 78.19% 67.57% 74.23%

To enlarge knowledge on specific species 49.56% 32.09% 42.61%

To follow what nature organizations are doing 38.26% 27.84% 34.38%

And the results of the comparison between reasons for visiting the Nature Today website and being

involved in nature management or preservation activities is presented in the table below:

Table 5: Visitors incentives and nature management/preservation activities

Why do you visit Nature Today? Involved in nature management or preservation

Not involved in nature management or preservation

Average percentage

General interest in nature 82.86% 88.29% 86.08%

To stay informed about what happens in nature 86.35% 75.27% 79.79%

To increase own knowledge about nature 79.05% 71.23% 74.42%

To enlarge knowledge on specific species 48.57% 38.51% 42.62%

To follow what nature organizations are doing 43.02% 28.23% 34.26%

What can be seen in these tables is the relation between a certain motivation to visit the website and

whether someone is involved in nature activities. The average percentage means the number of people

that have a certain reason for visiting Nature Today. For example in table 5: 86.08% of all people that

answered this question have a general interest in Nature. In that same row, the 82.86% means that of

all people who are involved in nature management or preservation activities, this percentage of people

visits Nature Today because of their general interest in nature. The same reasoning goes for people

who are not involved in these activities.

What is interesting to see is that there is a great similarity between the two tables, which enlarges the

reliability of the outcomes. For both tables the people who visit Nature Today because of their general

interest in nature are more likely to not be involved in nature activities, although these differences are

relatively low. However, for all the other outcomes the results are clearly higher for people who do

participate in nature activities. What can be concluded from this data is that people who come to the

website to learn, either about the latest news or just for specific species are more likely to be involved

in nature activities. This shows there is a correlation between the two items from the vision of Nature

Today: informing the public and motivating them to contribute to nature in monitoring, management

or preservation of nature.

Conclusion of value proposition

The current value proposition is still very relevant for Nature Today. It is there to fulfill the visitors need

to inform themselves with news articles about nature. The reasons for visiting the website show that

they visit because of this proposed value. The results also show that by informing the public with

nature news, they are more likely to be involved in nature activities, which is the second aim of Nature

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Today. For the future of the platform it is important to keep on delivering up-to-date nature

information and keep on trying to really teach the readers something new, as many visitors have the

aim to gather new knowledge about nature.

4.1.2 Key activities

The key activities are the most important tasks to be done in order to support the described value

proposition. This part analyses the current activities Nature Today carries out and tries to look for

improvements with the answers given in the survey. The key activities might be the most important

element of the BMC, since it shows how Nature Today serves their customers, and sustains the

relationship with them. This is an important basis for a long-term sustainable business model. Nature

Today’s current key activities are shortly described below:

• Coordinating website. The website always has to be up-to-date by publishing new articles on

a daily basis to remain attractive for visitors.

• Keeping contact with content providers. The website can only run smoothly when content

partners deliver news articles on a regular basis.

• Social media. The social media channels should be up-to-date.

• Ensure quality. All articles that are delivered by content providers have to be checked for

spelling and quality.

• Looking for new partnerships – New partnerships like content providers could improve the

quality of the website as it increases the topical developments in nature that are represented.

• Financing the platform. Nature Today was set up with a subsidy from the government, but is

now dependent on their own resources. One of the key activities at the moment is to look for

revenue streams to secure future existence of the platform.

These activities are valued well by the visitors. On the question what should be improved about the

website, the majority of the answers is that nothing should be changed. However, answers to multiple

other questions do show opportunities for Nature Today. These opportunities come from the active

participation of the readers in nature activities. A total of 86.9% of the visitors are found in nature at

least once a week. Also the majority (73,5%) is involved in voluntary jobs related to nature. The

following table shows activities done by the visitors and shows why these activities create

opportunities for new activities:

Table 6: Volunteer work done by visitors of Nature Today

Volunteer work Percentage involved

Observations 51.78%

Nature management 24.47%

Nature guide 22.59%

Systematic observations 17.46%

Board nature organization 14.39%

Giving lectures 13.27%

Nature education 9.01%

What this shows is that within Nature Today’s network there is a lot of available knowledge about

nature. Another question asked about the willingness to be informed about nature activities from

content partners. With a total of 61.1% answering positively, this shows there is a large willingness of

people to be informed or even participate in nature activities. At this moment Nature Today is already

a connector of nature news between multiple nature organizations and the public. These results show

that Nature Today also has opportunities to be a connector between nature educators and people who

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are enthusiastic about nature. As stated in the previous section, the majority of the people wants to

learn more about nature. A need might be fulfilled when they can easily be linked to nature guides

(361 in total who responded) or other lecturers and educators. From the survey question about which

kind of activities people like to be informed about, lectures (48.3% interested), courses (47%) and

monitoring activities (44.7%) were popular. Especially the last activity could be interesting to organize

as this directly influences nature, instead of indirectly through nature news articles. This could also

lead to new revenue streams, something Nature Today is diligently looking for. More of this will be

discussed in the revenue streams section of the BMC.

Improving current activities

The main goal is to inform the public with nature news from multiple different sectors. In the survey

an open question about improving the current range of news articles was asked: Which topics do you

miss on Nature Today? The main answer given was that more news articles about nature management

and nature preservation need to be published. This answer can be linked to three other questions in

the survey: which existing nature observations, nature management and nature policy topics would

you like to read more about on Nature Today? The three most important answers given per topic were:

Table 7: Most interesting nature observations, management and policy topics

Topics

Nature observations 1. Recognizing species (61.3%) 2. Results of former observation projects (56.6%) 3. Current observation projects (37.6%)

Nature management 1. Latest insights in nature management (75.3%) 2. Influence of management projects on nature (73.5%) 3. Successful nature management projects (72.2%)

Nature policy 1. Developments in national nature policies (63.2%) 2. Developments in regional nature policies (58.3%) 3. Development in European nature policies (55.7%)

These high percentages show that there is a large interest in the coverage of these topics. This would

mean two things for the activities of Nature Today: they should either communicate with their current

partner about the range of topics they address in their news articles and to include articles about

nature observations, nature management or nature policies (with a preference for the described

topics). The other solution would be to look for partnerships with nature organizations that have a

political or nature management background to address these topics more systematically.

International nature news

During the discussions with Arnold van Vliet, it was clear that he had some ideas about expanding the

products and services of Nature Today. It might even be considered a necessity for creating a more

sustainable business model. Currently Nature Today is highly focused on national nature news, but has

the ambition to scale up. The name change from Natuurbericht.nl to Nature Today was partly done to

be prepared for internationalizing the news articles. In this research people have been asked about

their opinions on foreign news articles. The main reason for scaling up is to reach a larger public with

the website, which would mean that the news articles would be written in English. The opinions on

this are divided: 47.3% would read English article, while 29% would not. The other 23.7% is still in

doubt. However, the survey response about possible topics for international nature received over 900

open answers, which shows that international nature news is something that people have an opinion

about. The following table summarizes the answers given for this question:

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Table 8: Which topics about international nature news would you like to read about?

Nature topic Times mentioned

Birds 134

Climate 92

Nature management & nature policy 92

Europe 69

Nature reserves 67

Plants 44

Comparable topics to what NT offers now 37

Research 31

Butterflies 29

Dutch border areas 25

Mammals 24

Endangered species 24

Forests/trees 22

Discovery of new species 21

Insects 21

Migration 20

No interest in international nature news 107

These are the most popular topics if Nature Today would decide to publish international news articles.

For a future BMC this is important because they will need to look for new international partnership

who are willing to publish stories on the Nature Today website. What is interesting to see from several

answers, is that most answers can be related to Dutch nature. A substantial amount of people write

that international nature news articles are only relevant for them when there is a link with Dutch

nature. For birds this is the case for the species who leave the Netherlands during the winter and

readers want to know more about their migration patterns (which is a category on itself) and the areas

they are hibernating. Climate change is a subject that has a direct impact on the Dutch national

environment and species that appear in Dutch nature. European nature policy and management could

affect Dutch nature conservation, for example with new policies for national nature reserves. To

summarize the answers given: the international news articles should be about special and rare type of

species that are found abroad or there should be a direct link to Dutch natural areas or policies to meet

the current customer’s needs. For the key activities this would mean that international bird

organizations, foreign climate institutions and European nature policy makers should be contacted for

partnerships.

Webinars

Another extra activity that was suggested by Arnold van Vliet was to introduce webinars. A survey

questions was directed to the interest in webinars and more specifically which topics. The overall

response was positive with only 15.2% not interested in webinars. In this question four topics

suggested are popular by the visitors:

1. Recognizing plants and animal species (60.6%)

2. Striking developments in nature (58.6%)

3. Interesting nature areas (50.7%)

4. Different ecological processes (45.7%)

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Implementing webinars in the key activities would mean that Nature Today has to approach specialists

from different nature fields to lecture about their knowledge. Also they will have to invest in

technologies that support the creation of webinars. A live webinar might need extra technologies than

a webinar which can be viewed back at any time. Also adding this activity would create a new possibility

for a revenue stream. This will also be discussed in the revenue streams section of the BMC.

Conclusion of key activities

The current set of activities will have to be expanded for a more sustainable business model. This could

be done by improving the current products and services offered, mainly by publishing about nature

monitoring/observations, nature management or nature policies. Or to expand internationally and

create partnerships with foreign nature organizations and arrange them to write news articles about

foreign or international topics. What also can be done is broaden the set of activities. In this section is

argued that organizing nature activities like guided tours, lectures or courses is something that the

current visitors seem to be excited about. Also introducing webinars would be a new activity that

visitors responded to in a positive way. Both activities would also bear financial opportunities, which

makes them even more interesting for Nature Today and for long-term survival of the platform.

4.1.3 Key resources

To reach the value proposition a company needs resources, these resources can be seen as the main

assets to reach a company’s goal. Different departments within companies might even require

different resources. These resources are needed to create the value proposition, to serve customer

segments and to deliver the product or service to the customer. In that way the quality of the resources

has a direct impact on the client and ultimately on the revenues, which needs to be known to create a

sustainable business model. The enumeration below shows which key resources are currently

employed by Nature Today:

• Professional researchers. The quality of research where the news articles are based on,

are directly linked to the quality of the website. The intellectual capital of content

providers and Nature Today editors defines the key resource that Nature Today offers.

• Partnerships with multiple research organizations. The more specialized an organization

is, the more knowledge they have in-house to do proper research about these type of

species. These partnerships makes sure that nature organizations will publish articles

every once in a while.

• Nature information collection. One website for different topical developments in Nature

where multiple nature disciplines are gathered, making it interesting for the average

nature lover as well as the people interested in specific nature topics.

• Brand name. With a large visitors’ base the brand name of Nature Today has a reliable and

professional connection, making the platform stronger.

• Observations list. Nature Today offers a tool to notify new observations and contains an

overview of the other observations done.

This research has created a first new key resource: user data. Although some basic information was

already known about the visitors, this research increased that knowledge to the visitors’ interest, their

daily life activities and demographic statistics. This will be useful for improvement of the platform by

adjusting it to the visitors’ wishes and needs. Concerning the existing key resources, obviously the most

important key resources are the news articles that are published daily on the platform. Although there

are multiple species that organizations report on, it was not yet clear were the specific interests per

topic were among the visitors. In the table below an overview is given of all categories that can be

found on the website and what the interests of the readers are:

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Table 9: About which categories do you prefer to read news articles?

Category % of interested visitors

Birds 71.4%

Butterflies 57.9%

Mammals 56.2%

Plants 53%

Insects 46.8%

Dragonflies 42.5%

Amphibians/reptiles 41.7%

Mushrooms 37.4%

Climate 35.8%

Beach & Sea 25.1%

Fish 24.6%

Opinion 17.6%

Caribbean 5%

This enumeration of most popular topics is useful for the development of the platform for the future.

Nature Today should identify which specific organizations publish on which days and about which

topics. They could get more satisfied customers if the topics of birds, butterflies, mammals and plants

would significantly come back more often than other topics. It might also be interesting for

approaching new partnerships. It shows that a large part of the visitors likes birds, which is an

interesting target audience for bird organizations who are net yet a partner of Nature Today. In the

revenue stream section will also be discussed in which ways partner organizations could become new

sources of income. However, these results might be influenced by the fact that some organizations

already publish more often on Nature Today. This means that a part of the readers might visit the

platform just for these topics, which influences some outcomes positively and others negatively.

Observations

One of the described resources, which is currently limited developed, is the observations’ list on the

website. In the survey only 4.4% of the people who do observations, pass these observations through

the Nature Today website (only 2.8% if all visitors would be included). From the previous section we

concluded that the majority of visitors (51.8%) does observations as voluntary work, while even 64%

of all visitors does at least do nature observations a few times a year. In another question many of

these ‘observers’ (77.4%) indicates that Nature Today helps them with doing the observations: mainly

by notifying them which species they should watch out for and how to recognize different species.

Although many visitors are involved in nature observations, they do not find the way to the Nature

Today website. This shows an underdeveloped potential for the platform. If they would focus on the

opportunity to easily pass through their findings on the platform, and support these opportunities with

related observation news articles they might be able to mobilize many visitors. The four most

interesting observation news articles, as indicated by the visitors:

1. Recognizing species (61.3%),

2. Results of former observation projects (56.6%),

3. Current observation projects (37.6%)

4. How to do nature observations (34.3%)

If these subjects would be increasingly integrated in the website, this would have two major benefits.

The first one is that Nature Today could mobilize a larger group of people to be actively involved in

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nature observations and monitoring, which is part of the vision. The second one is that they would

have a large backbone to collect relevant data for research. This would make Nature Today an even

more interesting partner.

Finally, what can be seen as a key resource is the design of the platform. The survey results show that

the visitors are very satisfied with the current design: only 3.1% stated that they would like to see

improvements. These improvements are mainly about the lay-out structure, so it is clear what the

most recent news articles are. Although this is something that might need to change, the vast majority

is already satisfied with the current design.

Conclusion key resources

The current resources are highly valued by the visitors, with only a small part of the people feeling the

need for improvements in topics covered or in platform design. The first improvement could come

from a better division of topics that are published on the platform. The visitors have clear preferences

for certain subjects: it would increase satisfaction if news articles about these topics are published

more often. Secondly, the results show that a currently underdeveloped item in the website, the

observations, should gain more attention. The number of people already involved in observation and

monitoring activities is large and preferences for news articles on this topic are known. This could lead

to more volunteers for data gathering as well as it helps to make more people enthusiastic about these

nature activities.

4.1.4 Customer relationship

The value proposition, the key activities and key resources all try to serve one goal: improve customer

satisfaction. A company needs to be in contact with their customers to be able to deliver products that

meet customer demands. What kind of relationship do the visitors of Nature Today expect from the

platform and how is Nature Today currently serving those needs? How should this relation between

customers and Nature Today be integrated in the business model? The three most important aspects

within customer relationship are customer acquisition (convince people to choose your platform over

other competitors), customer retention (long-term relationship with people) and boosting sales. The

areas in which Nature Today already retains a relationship with their visitors:

• Website. The nature news articles on the website have been the most important way of

gathering a large readers base.

• Social media. Customers are getting used to be informed wherever and whenever they want.

Having social media channels and publishing in different formats for mobile devices answers

customer needs.

Until this research the relationship with the visitors was somewhat one sided. A previous survey

through the website had gained some information on types of visitors, but was not as detailed as this

survey. Before the structure was more top-down, the nature organizations and website owners

decided which topics were presented. With these new insights it is possible to build a more complex

relationship. First of all, customer satisfaction rates could be raised by responding to the customers’

nature topics preferences. If these topics would also be extended to foreign topics, in English, it is

important how your readers feel about such a large change. Important numbers are that 29% of the

readers would not read international news articles, while another 23.7% still doubts whether they

would read these articles. This is a large percentage of the current visitors that might be excluded when

international news articles are introduced. To retain a good relationship with this part of the visitors,

it is recommended to keep on publishing the current Dutch news articles. The English news articles

should not replace Dutch articles, but are an addition to the current website and come from

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partnerships with international nature organizations. In this way the current visitors still have their

daily Dutch news articles and international visitors and half of the current visitors have extra news

articles to read.

From the survey we can see that the visitors of the website are really loyal. The majority of the people

(51.3%) visits the website daily. On a distance followed by once a week (19.2%) and a few times a week

(17.4%). This shows that the people who already know Nature Today, are likely to be loyal visitors.

However, these results might be somewhat biased because fanatic visitors are more likely to have filled

in this survey. From earlier results it is known that the majority of the people (61.1%) have an interest

in being informed about nature activities organized by content partners. This offers opportunities to

increase the customer relation to a relation with physical activities organized by Nature Today. While

this connection at this moment is purely digital, a physical relationship with activities in nature also

seems to be a logical next step to implement. Popular physical activities are attending lecture (48.3%),

courses (47%), national open days (46.9%) and monitoring activities (44.7%).

From the literature we have seen that people are more willing to get customized products. What we

can see is that the most popular answer given about activities from nature organizations, is to be

informed if a certain nature organization publishes a new article. This is directly related to a

customization option for Nature Today. Other related changes could be to change the webpage design

or to select a certain topic to only read news articles about that certain topic.

Conclusion customer relationship

The current relationship between Nature Today and the customer has been top-down, but with the

survey insights new possibilities and input have been delivered to diversify that relationship. A

suggestion for international nature news is to not forget about the loyal reader base that prefers Dutch

news articles, while also international news articles offers potential. Also offering customization

options on the platform could increase the loyalty to the website. Finally, a physical relationship seems

to be a logical next step. This would take the website from being a platform to becoming more of an

economic nature ecosystem like described in the literature of Weill & Woerner (2015). This ecosystem

would require partnerships with complementary product and services providers, so the product range

offered can be extended by organizing activities like lectures, courses and excursions. Ultimately, this

leads to a network of partners, the ecosystem, who try to achieve active involvement in – and

education about – nature.

4.1.5 Channels

The channels a company uses are the most important ways to reach customers and are of major

importance to create a strong relationship with them. Nature Today needs to know on which channels

their users are active, so they can more easily target these groups with their news articles. On the

other hand customers have a preference how they want to be approached, which requires specific

skills from Nature Today to use these channels effectively. This should lead to a strategy in which the

most cost-efficient channels are used to reach those customers, while these channels should also be

able to reach potential new customers.

Currently there are five distribution channels through which Nature Today’s news articles are spread:

Website, email newsletter, Facebook page, Twitter and a mobile app. The website is the basis of all

the visits, on average 66000 unique visitors a month. The email newsletter can be delivered on a daily

or weekly basis and is currently received by 13000 users, for half of the receivers on a daily basis and

the other half weekly. The Facebook account has close to 2250 followers and the Twitter account has

13300 (October 2017). According to Google Play store the App is downloaded over 1000 times. The

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survey has made clear which social media channels are used by users for daily use, gathering nature

information, sharing nature articles and through which channels they would like to be informed by

Nature Today. All different channels could help in attracting more visitors to the website. In the survey

a question was assigned to identify the channels through which they first heard of Nature Today. Table

8 gives a representation of these answers:

Table 10: How did you discover Nature Today?

How did you discover NT? Percentage

Via a content partner of NT 26%

Friends/relatives 19.2%

Through websites 13.5%

Search engines (Google/Bing/Yahoo) 8.3%

Facebook 2%

Television/newspaper/radio 1.1%

Twitter 0.8%

I don’t remember 18.8%

These results show that most people find their way to the website through the content partners. This

might be an opportunity or a stimulus to create a larger basis of content partners. Interesting to see is

that social media and traditional media are very unpopular channels to gather new visitors. In another

question was answered that 41.1% of the people is active on Facebook and 12.5% on Twitter, these

are significantly higher percentages than presented in the table. This shows that Nature Today should

invest more time in their social media strategy, if they want to gather new visitors. This is even more

supported by the fact that 52.4% of the visitors shares nature news through social media. This creates

an enormous potential for reaching new nature enthusiastic people. Other social media channels are

Instagram (7.4%) and snapchat (1.3%). Although not many of the current visitors might be reached

through these channels, they might attract different customer segments. Finally, search engines have

not been popular channels to reach new customers. This could also imply that the current search

engine strategy is underdeveloped and needs improvement.

To create an improved communication strategy for a new business model, the survey question about

how visitors want to be reached was included. Table 11 shows the outcomes:

Table 11: How do you want to be informed by Nature Today?

How do you want to be informed? Percentage

Email newsletter 68.9%

Website 55.6%

Nature Today App 19.6%

Facebook 15%

Twitter 5%

Instagram 2%

Snapchat 0.3%

These outcomes show that the most popular channel to be informed is the email newsletter, even

more than the website. However, these two cannot be seen separately from each other. In the

newsletter a small introduction is given for a certain article, but when a reader wants access to the

whole article a link leads them to the website. This probably means that the majority uses the email

newsletter as a distribution basis for their nature news, instead of first visiting the website in their

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browser. With a large reader base, this creates opportunities for new revenue streams with

advertisements or links to the web shop in the email newsletter.

App

Nearly 20 per cent would like to be informed via the Nature Today app, while only 9.2% percent of the

visitors indicated that they have this app installed. This means that people do not find a way to the app

and Nature Today needs to improve the promotion for the application. Another reason for this is that

mobile applications offer new opportunities for advertisement streams, although this should not come

at the expense of website visitors. This will be explained in the revenue streams section. Interesting to

see is that the amount of people willing to be informed by Facebook is three times higher than through

Twitter, while we have described that the Twitter account has over eight times more followers. This

again indicates that the current Facebook strategy is underdeveloped and has potential role in

informing the current visitor group.

Conclusion channels

Although Nature Today reaches a lot of visitors through multiple channels, the full potential of certain

channels is not utilized. In a future business model, more attention should be paid to a proper social

media strategy. People have shown to be active on those platforms and willing to share nature

information there, what could reach new nature lovers. Although the content partners have brought

new visitors to the site, if Nature Today is able to reach more collaborations with other partner

organizations the current reader base would increase again.

4.1.6 Customer segments

The customers might be the most important element of the business model canvas, as it shows which

groups of people you are targeting as a platform. For Nature Today this means they should identify the

type of visitors they want to serve and how to do so by analyzing their specific needs. These customer

segments can be identified by demographic characteristics as well as on motivational grounds like

interests and motivations. From this segmentation it should be clear which type of visitors is most

important to target for Nature Today. Currently Nature Today targets the following segments:

• Nature lovers. This group is a large market, because nature lovers come from all different

consumer types and different demographic backgrounds.

• Work-related visitors. A part of the visitors have interests in Nature Todays articles for

work purposes.

• Journalists. For Nature Today it is important to reach the media to inform a growing group

of people about topical development in nature. This is done through journalists and Nature

Today anticipates on this by creating a special module for journalists which enables them

to create news articles relevant for different media channels.

• Nature organizations. The website also creates value for nature organization that reach a

larger public with their news articles then if they would publish these articles themselves.

The survey has given in-depth information in demographic characteristics. We know that the average

is particularly high: 58.7 years old. Unsurprisingly, 38.5 per cent of the visitors is retired. Furthermore

the average person is highly educated: 76.1% has at least finished a HBO study. The following figure

shows the age distribution of Nature Today:

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Figure 13: age distribution of Nature Today’s visitors

What is striking to see is that Nature Today does not seem to reach people under the age of 45. From

the survey we can analyze whether this group has significant other interests in nature topics or if they

are reached through different channels. The data shows that there is no direct correlation between

interests in certain topics and age. Only around the topics of mushrooms and plants people with higher

age seem to be more interested. What this shows is that it is not possible to reach new target groups

by focusing on other nature topics. Concerning the use of media, there were some useful insights. In

the following table an overview is given for each age group – divided into an age gap of ten years – and

their sources for nature information. This gives an insight in the relationship between age and the

sources where people gather their nature information from.

Table 12: Age group and nature information source

News Source Age group ↓

Na-ture Today

TV News-paper & maga-zins

Re-search publications

Nature organizations

Books Apps Visitor center

Lec-tures

Internet

0-29 years (72 total)

92.0 37.8 55.4 60.8 48.7 74.3 20.3 5.4 36.5 46.0

30-39 years (77 total)

89.6 42.9 63.6 67.5 62.3 75.3 35.1 18.2 35.1 49.4

40-49 years (148 total)

90.5 45.3 61.5 52.7 66.2 73.0 27.0 18.2 29.1 46.0

50-59 years (365 total)

86.0 44.9 59.7 42.5 73.7 72.1 27.7 23.8 33.4 51.2

60-69 years (543 total)

88.0 40.5 57.3 39.6 72.7 72.7 20.3 25.2 33.2 51.9

70-79 years (259 total)

84.9 46.7 57.1 34.4 73.0 64.1 12.7 18.2 27.4 46.3

80-older (34 total)

75.5 35.3 52.9 41.2 67.7 52.9 5.9 20.6 14.7 41.2

* Answers in percentage of age group using these news sources

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Age distribution Nature Today's visitors

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From this table can be seen that in the age groups 50 – 59 and 60 – 69 are representing over 60 percent

of the total group. If we would add all the total percentages for each age group we can see that people

in the age of 30-39 are using the most different sources to gather their nature information. Interesting

to see is that the youngest group, under the age of 30, are using as many information sources as people

from the age group 70-79.

Other trends between age groups and the type of information sources can be seen in newspapers &

magazines, research publications and apps, where we can see an overall negative trend corresponding

with the age of the users. At the age of 30 – 39 years old this reaches the highest percentage of users,

with slowly declining percentages for every older age group. The youngest age group is not really

connected with this trend, as they score somewhat lower in percentage then the age group 30 - 39,

but this could be explained by the age range used. This also includes readers under the age of 20, for

who it might be less likely to read newspapers or read scientific articles. On the other hand we can see

a slightly positive trend between older people and the likeliness of being members of a nature

organizations or to go to visitor centers as an information source. What this data shows is that to

attract younger people, under the age of 50, Nature Today should focus its communication towards

newspapers and magazines, research publications and mobile apps. Especially the last item is

something that is already in use, but underdeveloped.

The question that was answered for age, could also be answered for gender. From the data is known

that 67.7% of the visitors is man, leaving 32.3% women. When comparing their characteristics, we can

see that women significantly have no preference for certain topics, the only topics they are not

interested in are fish and the Caribbean. They are slightly more interested in beach and sea topics and

plants. However, these preferences are minimal and a strategy to attract more women to the platform

by focusing on news articles on those topics is not likely to be successful.

Conclusion on customer segments

If an average person on Nature Today has to be characterized it would be a male of 59 years old, who

is highly educated. To attract women, or younger people or lower educated people, it is hard to set up

a strategy from the survey data. Although the youth seems to be easier to reach through

magazines/newspapers, research publications or mobile applications, they cannot be attracted by

focusing on specific nature topics. For women these results are similar, they have a slight preference

for plants or beach and sea topics, but not significant enough to make this a strategy. The average

education level might have something to do with the high quality and level of the news articles. If these

would be more accessible, this could attract new target audience. However, the data could not explain

the relation between education level and the visitors, it could also be the case that higher educated

people are more generally more interested in nature. Recommended for Nature Today is to pay

attention to the quality of the news articles, instead of targeting different user groups.

4.1.7 Key partners

Partnerships can help companies to outperform competitors. For Nature Today it is important to identify which partners are most important in bringing the platform to a higher level, what kind of resources Nature Today gets from these partners and in which activities those key partners are involved. The following key partners can be identified:

• Content partners. Research institutes, NGO’s and universities write articles for the Nature

Today website on a regular basis to share their knowledge about topical developments within

their specialty. They invest time in translating this knowledge into readable news articles.

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• ICT developers. When developing a website or a mobile application specific ICT knowledge is

needed to create a working and well performing platform. Technical competencies are

needed, which should eventually lead to an user friendly digital platform where visitors are

attracted to come back to. The current ICT developer for Nature Today is e-vision.

The current list of partners of Nature Today is: ARK Natuurontwikkeling, Atlas Leefomgeving, Atlas

Natuurlijk kapitaal, BLWG, De Vlinderstichting, EIS Kenniscentrum Insecten, FLORON, GLOBE, Natuurlijk

Limburg, Nederlandse Mycologische Vereniging, N100-KNAW, Provincie Gelderland, SoortenNL,

Stichting ANEMOON, Stichting RAVON, Stichting voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling, Vogelbescherming

Nederland, Werkgroep Grauwe Kiekendief and Zoogdiervereniging. Research institutes like

Wageningen University also share knowledge from research summarized in news articles. Other

organizations like the Centraal Bureau Statistiek, citizen science research project ‘Natuurkalender’ and

Muggenradar help Nature Today by keeping databases up-to-date or with financial support.

From earlier presented results we concluded that nature organizations do deliver news articles on a

regular basis, but also bring new visitors. The list of partners is already quite large, but from the data

collected about memberships of nature organizations we can see with quite some organizations there

is no collaboration yet. The table below gives insight in the memberships of readers:

Table 13: Percentage of visitors that are member of a nature organization

Nature organization Percentage

Natuurmonumenten 46.6%

Vogelbescherming 40.8%

IVN 21.6%

Greenpeace 20.9%

KNNV 19.5%

Wereld Natuur Fonds 18.3%

SOVON Vogelonderzoek 14.9%

Vlinderstichting 13.7%

Milieudefensie 10.6%

Other 34.6%

At this moment only the Vlinderstichting and Vogelbescherming are partners of Nature Today, whereas

SOVON published frequently on the platform until last year and Natuurmonumenten still publishes

every few months. From previous results we have analyzed that one of the main reasons to visit Nature

Today is to follow what nature organizations are doing. Furthermore, we have seen that visitors mainly

got in touch with the platform through other nature organizations. What this means is that

partnerships, especially with the above mentioned organizations, would raise visitors satisfaction as

well as the number of visitors. Although Nature Today already tries to collaborate with multiple

organizations, this research emphasizes that these collaborations are one of the key factors of success

for the platform and establishing relationships should be one of the key activities. Finally, IVN is known

for their education to nature guides. A collaboration could also be a step into organizing nature tours

through nature today. These kind of ties could also be established with other nature organizations.

A third of the answers given were about organizations not mentioned in the survey. An analysis has

been made about these ‘other organizations’. The outcome was that these organizations could be

classified into five different categories:

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1. Specified nature organizations (for a certain type of species) – mentioned 176 times

2. Regional organizations – mentioned 172 times

3. Natuurpunt Belgium – mentioned 150 times

4. Local organizations – mentioned 63 times

5. Belgian nature organizations – mentioned 47 times

Although Natuurpunt is also a Belgian based organization, it was mentioned so often

(10% of total responses) that an extra category was created. Natuurpunt is a nature based website

from Vlaanderen that shows similarities with Nature Today. Their main goal is to protect the vulnerable

and endangered nature areas in Vlaanderen. They also publish nature news articles about research

done in the 500 nature areas they are working in. Nature lovers can become member and participate

in different activities like guided tours, courses in nature, sporting activities or volunteering. With this

portfolio they could be seen as a competitor of Nature Today, although they currently are only

targeting Belgian nature. Their organization as a whole provides interesting similarities to the

outcomes of this research. Not only in their differentiated product range, but also in their multiple

revenue streams. One of their goals is to protect nature, which fits the vision of Nature Today. An

collaboration between the Natuurpunt and Nature Today could have benefits for both parties: For

Nature Today the knowledge about how to organize nature activities and how to gather more revenue

streams. On the other hand Nature Today can offer more specialized knowledge with news articles.

Conclusion key partners

For a digital platform like Nature Today partnerships determine how successful and influential the

platform is. From the data presented earlier and the insights in the current visitors memberships it can

be concluded that more nature organizations as partners could lead to more satisfied readers and

increasing numbers of visitors. The list of memberships shows which national partners are interesting

to collaborate with. From the key activities section we have also seen that international bird, climate

and nature management/policy organizations are interesting potential partners. A very similar

platform to Nature Today is the Belgian Natuurpunt.be. The results from this survey direct Nature

Today towards a comparable platform as their Belgian counterpart. A collaboration between the two

could benefit both parties.

4.1.8 Cost structure

The cost structure describes which parts of the business model bring certain costs. These costs can be

related to key resources or key activities. Some of which are variable costs and others fixed. Some costs

are relatively less costly when produced on a larger scale. The following enumeration contains the

products and processes that generate costs for Nature Today:

• Website maintenance. When there are technological problems or the website has to be

updated to improve meeting customer’s needs, this should be done by people with ICT

knowledge.

• Opportunity costs. Keeping the website up-to-date is time consuming. Because the

website is maintained by top biologists, this means that the time invested in the website,

or invested in translating research results into news articles, cannot be invested in other

research or education time.

• Hosting costs. Hiring the domain NatureToday.com brings fixed yearly costs.

Conclusion cost structure

The results from the survey are not connected to the costs made by Nature Today, which makes it hard

to conclude from this canvas element. What can be concluded is that the technological basis for the

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platform, the fixed costs, will always exist. A growing platform would relatively lower the average costs

to maintain the website. However, this does require extra time in quality insurance of the news articles.

In earlier results it was also suggested to improve the mobile application and the social media strategy.

These would lead to higher opportunity costs as well.

4.1.9 Revenue streams

Contrary to the costs, a company has certain ways to create value that leads to revenues. Not only

current revenue streams are important, also future revenue should be described. This section first

describes the income Nature Today currently receives and will analyze the effectiveness of these

streams. Secondly, this chapter will elaborate on the possibilities for new revenue streams that were

identified from survey results. In the introduction chapter was stated that digital content providers

have failed to find different revenue streams, making them vulnerable and dependent on

advertisement incomes. That is why the described revenue streams can be seen as the basis for a

future-proof and sustainable business model. Currently Nature Today has the following revenue

streams:

• Advertisement income. The largest part of the income comes from advertisements on the

website. These are implemented in the form of banners and get more profitable the more

people click on them. Currently these advertisements come from Google Adsense, while other

advertisement methods like sponsored content is not yet used. These advertisements yield

around 200 – 300 euro’s a month.

• Web shop income. On the website there is a link to a web shop were nature products can be

bought. When someone visits one of these web shops through a click on Nature Todays

website, a certain percentage (around 10 percent) of the price of products sold will go to

Nature Today.

• Financers/subsidies: A current financial partner of Nature Today is the Prins Bernard

Cultuurfonds, an organization that subsidizes cultural, nature related and scientific initiatives.

From the survey we can confirm that advertisement strategy is not very effective, because only 15,8%

of the visitors is aware of these banners and actively clicks on them. A total of 40,4% does not even

see the advertisement and they are likely to use advertisement blockers. This shows the necessity of

gathering new revenue sources. For this moment these advertisement still make profits, so it would

be unnecessary to delete them. As presented earlier, the email newsletter is send to a large reader

base and also there is a potential for more users of the mobile applications. These are two options

where advertisements can easily be implemented. It will not create enough revenue to finance the

whole platform, but do offer a stable part of income.

For the second current revenue stream, the web shop, the survey results were rather promising.

Although the current amount of people buying stuff from this web shop is limited, only 33.7% indicated

in the survey that they are not interested in buying products from the web shop. This means that the

other 66.3% has already visited the web shop (23.1%) or is willing to visit it in the future (43.2%).

Improving the web shop thus offers opportunities. To see how these opportunities can be taken, a

question was related to the type of online purchases people make. The following table shows these

product categories:

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Table 14: What kind of products do you purchase online?

Product category Percentage

Books and magazines 68.3%

Travels, hotels and accommodations 40%

Electronics 28.5%

Clothing 27.2%

Gifts and gadgets 24.8%

Home and garden 22.7%

Hard and software 22.5%

Music and video 20.6%

Pets and animals 12%

Health care 11.2%

I do not make online purchases 16.7%

These outcomes confirm the potential of online shopping, with 83.3% of the people indicating they do

online purchases. These outcomes have two implications for Nature Today. First, more needs to be

done to guide visitors to the web shop, it should gather more attention. This could be done by making

a more visible link on the website itself, or via promotion via the other media channels. Second, the

products offered should connect to the products categories that people buy online stuff for. Especially

nature books and magazines have a great to sell through the web shop. The same applies to the other

top categories in table 14. An improvement would be to create a collaboration with other shops who

sell these nature products and show them the potential selling through Nature Today. This would

create a mutual benefit for these shops as well as for Nature Today.

Subscription model

A more well-known revenue methods from other content providers is a subscription model. Although

Arnold van Vliet stated he is not directly interested in applying such a model, two survey questions

were appointed to this subject. The majority answered (69.2%) that they are not willing to pay for the

news articles. For the people who would not mind to pay, most people (52.2%) are willing to pay

between 6 and 15 euro per year. Taken all answers together from people who are willing to pay, this

resulted in an average of 12,83 euro yearly. If indeed 30.8% would pay that amount of the monthly

66.000 visitors, this would create 260.808 euro a year. However, this is very unlikely. First of all because

the most active readers filled in this survey and they are probably more likely to pay. The percentage

of all people who are willing to pay is probably a lot lower. Also, a large percentage indicated that 12,83

is too much for them and they leave when a paywall is implemented. Most importantly, Nature Today

would lose the largest part of its reader base, which would have a negative impact on both goals

present In Nature Todays vision. Implementing a subscription model is not advised. Some suggestions

from visitors are related to the possibilities of donating to the website. In that way people who feel

connected to the platform and are willing to contribute to the existence have a possibility to do so. A

small banner on the website could lead to an easy extra revenue source.

Publishing fee for content partners

At the start of this research, it was a serious option is to ask nature organizations to pay a certain fee

for publishing on Nature Todays website. This idea was introduced because organizations can profit

from the platform in terms of exposure, gathering volunteers/donors and an increased chance in

getting new jobs from governments or companies. Arnold van Vliet felt like publishing on their

platform offers value to these organizations and they should pay for that. During the research Arnold

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van Vliet reached an agreement with multiple partners that they pay a yearly fee of 3000 euro which

grants them access to publishing on Nature Today. This agreement offers an important basis for the

creation of a future-proof business model because of the stable revenue streams.

Nature activities

In the section of key activities was already explained that many visitors are actively involved in nature

activities and are willing to be informed about other activities. In this section we reasoned that this

could offer new revenue streams. For example with the many nature guides. Nature Today has a large

network of nature lovers and nature guides are looking for a public to guide. This offers opportunities

for organizing nature trips with specialists. To participate people can subscribe themselves through

Nature Today and pay a certain fee, this fee is partly for Nature Today as a connector and partly for

the nature guide. This connects again to the vision to mobilize people to go into nature. The same

could be done for lectures. Many nature specialists, or specialists on a specific nature topic, can be

approached through the contacts of the platform to share their knowledge. Interested visitors can

subscribe themselves through the website and make small payment to attend or participate. This

strategy could also be applied for webinars, where specialists make a video about a certain topic.

Visitors can view these videos by paying a small fee.

Mobile application

One of the ideas for the future is the creation of mobile application about location based nature

information. Research institutes might be interested in the creation of such app as well, because it

gives them access to more data. If they are willing to become a partner of this application, they have

to pay a certain amount of money. Another idea is to let people pay a certain amount of money to

download to app to gain revenues. Or to sell this application to schools, to use in biology class. The

creation of this app is not free and it should be kept up-to-date which increases workload. That is why

a collaboration with research institutes has to be established to cover those costs. This would lead to

an larger product range of Nature Today, which creates more satisfied visitors and attracts new target

audiences.

Conclusion revenue streams

The current revenue streams from advertisements, the web shop and subsidies is insufficient to keep

the platform running in the long-term. This section shows that multiple new revenue streams can be

created. The advertisement strategy can be expanded to the email newsletter and the mobile

application. The web shop has large potential, but needs to offer new products which match with the

online buying behavior of the visitors. When it comes to new income sources, Nature Today as an

organizer of nature activities has a large potential. Within the visitors there is a large part actively

involved in nature guiding or nature education. By connecting interested public and these nature

teachers together through Nature Today, revenues can be obtained. We would discourage the

platform to put their content behind a paying wall, while a donating button on the home page is

recommended. Finally, during this research an agreement between Nature Today and multiple content

partners has been reached. This is an important step for a future-proof platform.

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Conclusion

The presented outcomes in the results section have shown which business model elements need

improvement and in which ways these changes have to be implemented by Nature Today. These

improvements have been substantiated with evidence from the survey, which delivered an extensive

insight in Nature Todays visitors wishes and needs. All these changes can be summarized in the same

Business Model Canvas, the new version is presented as figure 14.

Figure 14: New business model canvas for Nature Today

4.2 Analysis of Nature Today’s competitive environment from survey data Competitors are of major importance for the success of a company in a certain sector. With the

increased insights people have with the internet it is now easier to compare company performance,

giving superior companies an advantage. By analyzing the competitive environment, it helps to see in

which sectors Nature Today needs to develop in order to be the leader in their sector or to at least

perform better than direct competitors. Also, in this chapter the analysis focuses on the categories

that the current readers are interested in, and analyzes which other content providers are offering

these topics. Furthermore, the information that is missed on the current Nature Today website could

be offered by other competitors. This can be analyzed with the question from the survey about their

nature information sources, where the visitors get their information from beside the Nature Today

website.

Some of the current content partners can also be competitors. The survey has given insights into which

other nature organizations the readers are subscribed to. As many readers (70.2% in total) have

indicated they also get their nature information from nature organizations, these organizations could

pull away readers from the platform. With this in mind, it is interesting to analyze if there are

organizations which are not current content partners, because partnerships with these organizations

might attract a large group of new readers. And last, the communication division of these nature

organizations can be seen as competitors as well. When Nature Today publishes their content and

45

reaches a larger public than they could by themselves, these organizations might consider their

communication departments as unnecessary.

From the survey results we have seen the main reasons to visit the Nature Today website. These results

show that nature lovers with an interest in the latest developments in nature and specific species are

visiting the website. When looking for direct competitors of Nature Today, these answer make clear

that websites offering new insights from nature, either general news or news about specific species,

are the major competitors because of product similarities. This can be linked to the question where

people get their nature information from in Table 15.

Table 15: Where do you get your nature information from?

Nature information source Percentage

Nature Today 87%

Books 70.5%

Nature organizations membership 70.2%

Newspapers and magazines 58.7%

Internet 48.8%

Television 42.7%

Academic publications 42.2%

Lectures 31.3%

Visitors centers 21.4%

Nature apps 21.3%

What these results show is that, next to Nature Today, books and through nature organizations where

visitors are member of people gather their nature news. When it comes to books, they differ on a few

points significantly from the business model of Nature Today: 1). They are never really up-to-date as

they have to go through a process of editing, rewriting and they have to be pressed. 2). They are not

available online and thus not accessible from multiple locations. 3). They are physical instead of digital.

On the other hand books offer more background information on a specific topic. If Nature Today could

create longer background articles, they might fulfill new visitor’s needs. Also the nature organizations

can be seen both as partners and as competitors. As already reasoned in the key partners section of

the BMC, collaborations with nature partners as content providers is of major importance in reaching

a large public. This will be necessary to ultimately become a nature news leader, first nationally and in

the future internationally. For international nature news coverage this still requires partnerships with

international nature organizations.

For the result of newspapers and magazines: these can offer up-to-date nature information and are

most of the time available through online channels, which make them seem like competitors. On the

other hand it is very unlikely that newspapers are going to create nature news articles by themselves.

There seems to be more of a mutual benefit in a collaboration instead of competing for nature news.

Stronger ties with journalists would be recommended, perhaps by a collaboration in which at least

once a month (or other period) a nature news article is published. This research has already tried to

find out how more nature news could be published, but has not created clear answers. This can be

explained by the low number of journalists that filled in the survey and those who did were already

satisfied with the format and newsworthiness of the articles.

Most interesting to see is from which other internet websites people get their nature information from,

as these are most comparable to Nature Today in terms of content, packaging and infrastructure,

46

which are the three competitive advantages a digital content provider can have. From an analysis done

about these internet websites the following answers were given (table 16):

Table 16: From which website do you get your nature information?

(Type of) Website Times mentioned

Waarneming.nl (observations website) 100

Specific nature organization website 86

Sites for specific species 64

Vroege Vogels (Radio/Television show) 21

Friends/relatives 19

Verspreidingsatlas.nl 17

Wikipedia.com 15

Natuurpunt.be 14

Classes/seminars 14

Google 13

These results confirm the earlier conclusion that visitors have a large interest in nature observations.

Currently this pulls away visitors to other websites like waarneming.nl, but could be implemented by

Nature Today as argued in the key activities section. Another option would be to establish a

collaboration with waarneming.nl in which visitors of Nature Today have insights in observations and

have the possibility to add new observations through the platform. Other large outcomes are related

to smaller and specific species that people are interested in. For the business model of Nature Today

this means that smaller and specific species still deserve attention in news articles, instead of focusing

on the most popular nature topics or species. However, these answers were really diversified and many

news articles would be needed to satisfy this group of readers interested in specific species.

Nature apps

As mentioned earlier in the literature study, the market for mobile apps is booming and the majority

of people is using their mobile phone more to be informed than other platforms (Telegraph, 2015).

Also interesting to see is that an under-represented group, below 50 years, is more likely to use apps,

which could help targeting new audiences to the Nature Today platform. In the survey a question was

related to the use of nature apps by visitors. One of these outcomes was that the current Nature Today

app is only used by 9.15% of the users, while in the previous graph was shown that on average 21.3%

of the people use mobile apps for gathering nature information. If the visitors on a monthly basis would

be 66.000, as described in the introduction, this would mean that just over 14.000 people use apps for

nature information, but only a few thousand downloaded the Nature Today app. If the Nature Today

application would be promoted, this could mean that the total users of this app could be over doubled,

which might pull away visitors from other apps that can be seen as competitors.

Conclusion

The competitive environment of Nature Today is mainly focused on nature content providers

publishing up-to-date nature information on a very regular basis. For the visitors of Nature Today these

are mainly the nature organizations where they are a member of. However, most nature organizations

can profit from the exposure on the Nature Todays platform and can be better identified as partners

then as competitors. The most popular organizations for visitors are Natuurmonumenten,

Vogelbescherming and IVN. Natuurmonumenten already published on the website, but IVN currently

is not a partner, but could be interesting when they decide to organize more nature activities. Another

source where quite some visitors gather nature information from are books and newspapers &

47

magazines. Books are no direct competitors as they cannot be compared in terms of content,

packaging and infrastructure, but show that more in-depth articles on Nature Today has potential. It

also increases the opportunities for the web shop to sell books and magazines. Furthermore, Nature

Today should establish a better connection with journalists to increase the number of nature articles

published in the media. Although journalists indicated to be satisfied with the current platform,

stronger agreements might help to get more nature news published. Finally, the observation websites

are taking away visitors, while previous results have shown this is not necessary. If Nature Today would

build in options in the platform to deliver nature observations and store these observations in a

database, this will lead to more satisfied customers. This could also be created if a partnership with

waarneming.nl would be established.

4.3 Benefits for Nature Today’s content partners This research has studied the internal competencies of Nature Today and the improvements needed

to get to a financially self-sustainable platform. From the key partners analysis was concluded that

content partners are the keys to Nature Todays success and will have an important role in the potential

success for the future. To gather new partnerships, the platform will need a good story to convince

new partners to collaborate. This section aims to answer the research question about the benefits for

nature organizations, NGO’s and research institutes when partnering up with Nature Today. It will also

provide implications for the changing role the current partners will have and the changes Nature Today

should make to mean more for these organizations.

Employers and volunteers

In the introduction was already elaborated upon the potential presence of employers on the platform.

Nature organizations are often employed by governments like municipalities, provinces or the national

government, or by companies interested in certain nature organizations for all different purposes. The

results gave insight in the professional background of the visitors, and shows the potential of linking

content partners to these employers. In total 10.3% of the visitors works at a governmental

organization, most of them locally (36.8%), followed by nationally (29.5%) and on a provincial level

(16.6%). Although this survey did not include questions about how often people working at

governments did provide nature organizations with projects, this data shows that the platform informs

a great number of potential employers for content partners.

As data from the BMC already explained, a large percentage of the visitors engages in nature volunteer

work. Mainly in the fields of nature monitoring, nature management and nature preservation. By

analyzing the websites of the nature organizations, it shows nature organizations are always looking

for new volunteers. With the large number of nature lovers and nature volunteers on the Nature Today

website, it can be seen as an interesting market for content partners. This is supported by the fact that

38.5% of the visitors is retired and does have time to spend. What Nature Today could do to improve

this is link volunteers to the specific projects that nature organizations have. They should pay attention

that this is divided equally between all organizations, or maximize the number of projects that can be

promoted through the platform for each year. For the nature organizations it is recommended to

explain the need for these projects, because the survey shows that people are interested in the effects

of volunteering work on nature and the campaigns that try to influence nature policies and

preservation. Also, volunteers can collect data for research purposes performed by nature

organizations which is a second benefit.

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Membership

Furthermore, the results show that most people are member of a nature organization, in total 88.7%

of the visitors. From the results of the types of organizations, Natuurmonumenten, Vogelbescherming,

IVN and Greenpeace were most popular. This shows that these organizations can easily reach a large

part of their donors through the platform, satisfying their donors in terms of information needs and

increasing the chance that this group will keep on donating. It also shows the potential for nature

organizations who are not yet a partner that the platform is capable of informing a large group of

nature lovers. By publishing on the platform, brand awareness can be created and potential new

members can be collected. This research has advised to look for nature organizations for international

collaborations, the survey results show great potential for different nature organizations to reach a

new public. Although, bird organizations, Greenpeace, WWF and larger general nature organizations

seem to have the highest potential. These claims are supported by the fact that 52.4% of the readers

shares nature news with their network, which means that the potential spread of the articles reaches

further than the visitors of the website alone.

News article topics

These results have also created a lot of background into the wishes and needs of the readers, which

can directly be translated into interesting news articles by the content partners. Earlier results have

shown that the five most popular species are birds (71.4%), butterflies (57.9%), mammals (56.2%),

plants (53%) and insects (46.8%). General nature organizations could focus more often on these

species when writing news articles. This research also identified the topics that are currently missing

on the platform. The following table provides an overview of these topics:

Table 17: Topics that are currently missing on Nature Today

Nature topic Times mentioned

Nature management/nature policy 33

Nature development 14

Research outcomes 14

Trees/forests 13

(Nature) activities 11

Politics 11

Opinion 10

Water/water animals 10

Foreign countries 10

Although the majority of the readers is already satisfied with the range of topics covered, the largest

potential for news articles is about nature policies, nature monitoring – projects and how to do

observations – and nature management. These are topics that all nature organizations have to deal

with in their daily work and could provide interesting insights for the readers. Another question related

to the international nature topics received attention in this report. These results have shown that there

is an interest in international nature news, but the connection should be clear with the Netherlands.

This could be the case with species that are hibernating in warmer places, about international nature

areas or climate related topics.

Nature activities

Finally, this research recommends to diversify the activities performed by Nature Today. For these

activities the nature organizations play an important role. First of all, most visitors (61.1%) have

49

indicated they would like to be informed by nature activities from content partners. The following

activities are most interesting: new publications by specific nature organizations (67.9%), lectures

(48.3%), courses (47%), national days (46.9%) and nature monitoring activities (44.7%). Nature Today

can function as a social platform where nature lovers and organizers of nature activities are connected.

This would link to Nature Today’s vision about mobilizing people to be actively involved in nature

activities and links to the vision of nature organizations to improve the quality of nature as a whole.

The results also shows the potential of webinars. Nature organizations have a lot of inhouse

knowledge, which could be shared via a webinar through the platform to reach a large group of nature

lovers.

Conclusion

A collaboration between Nature Today and content partners creates multiple mutual benefits. Nature

organizations can reach a larger public with their news articles, leading to brand awareness and

potential new donors. The platform could also function as a connector between nature lovers and the

nature activities organized by content partners. The same goes for the nature volunteers that might

be willing to work on volunteering projects of content partners. Although there has not been

researched for a direct link between bringing in project and publishing on the platform, the number of

people working in governmental organizations does show the potential to do so. Furthermore, the

data that Nature Today collects about the visitors is useful for writing relevant and interesting news

articles. These results show the potential of underdeveloped topics, which might increase the number

of visitors to the platform if content partners would treat these topics more often. The visitors share

nature news often with their network, which means that the potential reach of the platform is beyond

the visitors on the website.

50

5 Conclusion and recommendations Many digital content providers are looking for new revenue streams. These content providers are still

mainly dependent on advertisement incomes, while these incomes are under pressure and are

expected to decrease in the near future. This research has aimed to identify new revenue streams by

innovating the business model of digital content providers. With these revenue streams a financially

self-sustainable platform can be created. For the identification of concrete solution a case study

approach was used. The case of Nature Today, an online digital information platform for nature news,

was used to serve as an example for other online content or information suppliers.

From business model literature the elements of the Business Model Canvas and the definition of Morris

et al. have been used. Combined these stated that a good business model takes eleven elements into

account: value proposition, customer relationship, customer segments, channels, key activities, key

resources, key partnerships, competitors, cost structure, revenue streams and personal factors. Based

on these elements a current situation Business Model Canvas was created. This showed that the

current competitive advantage of Nature Today is the high quality of nature news articles, their

consistency in publishing daily and their network of nature organization that deliver news articles.

Looking at other successful companies, they are organized with a customer-focus. Content is

personalized or customized for specific groups and their platform design and product delivery to the

customer has shown to be important. Data for customers characteristics and motives is used for

constant adaptation of the products, so the products offered fulfill customers wishes and needs.

Considering the competitive environment, the competitor analysis showed that other nature

organizations seem to be the largest competitors as they have comparable competitive advantages in

the form of content, packaging and infrastructure. Also, many visitors indicated they discovered Nature

Today through other nature organizations. However, this research argues that these organizations

should rather be seen as partners than competitors since Nature Today is able to reach a larger range

of nature lovers nationally, more than these organizations could by themselves. A collaboration

between the two would create mutual benefits. The large interest in regional and local organizations

has shown the need for specific and close-to-home nature news. Additionally, the interest in nature

books, newspapers and magazines shows that more in-depth articles about nature is a wish of the

visitors. Offering a slightly different product, nature observations websites are also very popular, which

offers opportunities to create an observation database on the Nature Today platform. From this

competitor analysis could be concluded that Nature Today is market leader in deliver national nature

news, but opportunities are to be taken in in-depth news articles and the possibility of passing through

observations on the platform.

This research has identified the demographic characteristics and motives of visitors of Nature Today.

On average these are 59 years old, two third is man, mainly highly educated visitors and loyal to the

platform. They have a general interest in nature and have the wish to learn more about nature, or

about specific species. They are actively involved in nature activities, mainly observations, work as a

nature guide or are involved in nature preservation activities. Topics that are most attractive to them

are birds, butterflies, mammals and plants. Considering their unfulfilled needs, they prefer news

articles about nature monitoring, observations or preservation and nature activities organized by

content partners. They can be reached through the email newsletter, the website, the Nature Today

app or Facebook. The majority is interested in international nature news, although a large group would

not read English news articles. From the results no strategy towards certain topics use in targeting new

audiences was found, while different age groups could mainly be reached via mobile apps, newspapers

or academic journals.

51

Content partners have an important role in the quality of the platform as well as a function for directing

new visitors to the website. The results also indicated that Nature Today creates benefits for these

content partners in many ways. In connecting nature organizations with possible employers active on

the website and searching for volunteers for their nature projects. In increasing their brand awareness

and the possibility to gather new members from this. In gaining insights in which topics nature lovers

are most interested in and guiding about which topics they should write about. And finally, in

connecting people who like to be in nature to the nature activities that are organized by content

partners. These could be lectures, guided tours, webinars or for their national days. This research has

shown that both parties profit from each other’s input in the collaboration.

To answer the main research question which business model element should be implement by Nature

Today, this research has mentioned several options. This research has delivered a first large data

source on the visitors, which will have to be used to adjust the platform to the visitors wishes and

needs. It highlighted that Nature Todays needs to diversify their key activities to create new revenue

streams. The new revenue streams of improved web shop sales, better placed advertisements,

webinars, nature activities, paying nature organizations, financers/subsidies and gifts/donations will

ultimately lead to a financially self-sustainable platform. The basis that forms this is the agreement

between the platform and content partners to pay a certain fee to publish. The diversified activities

will also have to lead to new partnerships with retail partners, nature activity organizers and

international nature news organizations. This will lead to more nature news articles and more direct

care of nature, both contributing to the vision of Nature Today.

5.1 Recommendations for Nature Today The presented improved business model canvas already shows a summarized version of the

recommendations. In this chapter all the recommendations for Nature Today will be presented, linked

to specific actions. The report has mentioned multiple improvements, these will be summarized in this

section:

News articles. First of all, the news articles should focus more on topics around nature observations,

nature management and nature preservation. Mainly describing the current project that are running

or about successes or failures of finished projects. The main interests of topics is birds, butterflies,

mammals and plants. It is recommended to let these topics return more often. Also more background

stories on these topics is a need that should be fulfilled by the platform. Most importantly, the articles

should remain of high quality and the platform should be consistent in publishing daily. Publishing

about international nature also offers opportunities, and it is recommend to start with topics that still

link with Dutch nature. If this is received well by the readers, internal articles could be expanded by

publishing about birds, climate or European nature management and nature policy topics as these are

indicated as most interesting.

Partnerships. Internationalization requires partnerships with international nature organizations with

specialism about the mentioned topics. The Belgian website Natuurpunt.be could also be seen as a

nature partner, since their goals are similar to the current website. Nature Today could provide more

qualitative news articles, while Natuurpunt could provide the platform with tips on expanding the

number of revenue streams. Furthermore, the web shop can be improved by partnerships with retail

parties. This research analyzed that products that should be offered there are books, magazines and

travel related products. Retail partners offering these products should be approached to sell through

the Nature Today web shop.

Activities. Because of the large numbers of people active in nature activities or as a nature guide, it is

recommended to facilitate these groups with information about nature excursions, lectures, guided

52

tours or other courses. These could be organized by Nature Today themselves, or they could link the

visitors to content partners activities. The first manner could create an extra stream, while the second

one would satisfy content partners and justify the publishing more. A nature activity calendar on the

website would provide a good overview of these activities. The creation of webinars has large potential

and is recommend to be developed. This could be done by Nature Today themselves or by approaching

research specialists about a certain topic.

Platform design. From successful content providers could be seen that platform customization satisfies

users. For Nature Today this could be done giving the opportunity to sort the news articles on a certain

type of species, to only see the text of the news articles in a chronological order or to only see articles

publishes by a certain content partner or writer. Secondly, doing observations is very popular among

the current readers. It is recommend to offer a tool on the platform to hand in these observations.

These could help for research purposes of content partners. Also a partnership with the most popular

observation website waarneming.nl could be established and visitors can get insights in the observed

species on the Nature Today website.

Channels. The current channels to reach users is mainly limited to the website and the email

newsletter. Improving the social media strategy could create more brand awareness for Nature Today

and reach new potential visitors. Readers have indicated to share nature news and with social media

platforms like Facebook, many more persons could be reached. The mobile application is already

developed, but the promotion is limited. Many underrepresented user groups inform themselves

through mobile apps, which makes investing in this channel interesting.

Revenue streams. This research has highlighted multiple extra revenue streams. Advertisement could

be added to the mobile application and the email newsletter. Expansion and extra promotion of the

web shop could increase revenue. Watching webinars can be inserted behind a pay-wall. Organizing

nature activities for a certain fee or for every person that finds an activity of a content partner through

the platform a small fee is paid by these partners. Nature organizations willing to publish on the

platform should pay a publishing fee. Finally, people have indicated to be willing to donate for the

existence of Nature Today, so a donating banner on the website could help. However, implementing a

subscription model for the news articles is not advised.

53

6 Discussion The aim of this research is to provide digital content providers insights in how to improve their business

model to be less dependent on advertisement incomes. This was done by identifying all business model

components and testing these on the case of Nature Today to see how content providers can innovate

their business model. Literature shows that a business model includes a complex set of network

relations and actions between multiple actors in the business environment (Zott et al. 2011). A

business model describes the types of competitive advantages a company owns. For digital content

providers, like Nature Today, these advantages are related to the published content, the customer

experience and the platform design. For this research the business model components of Osterwalder

and Pigneur (2010) and Morris et al. (2005) were combined, leading to eleven elements. To gather new

revenue streams to become financially self-sustainable, this research identified that these revenues

are mainly a result of the key resources a company possesses and the key activities it performs. The

most important key resource is extensive knowledge of the end-customer. From best practices in the

field it was analyzed that successful content providers have a customer-centered focus instead of

product-centered. Thorough knowledge on customers background, wishes and needs shapes the key

activities that will ultimately lead to new or more revenue streams, making companies less dependable

on the declining incomes from advertisements. This research describes that for the case of Nature

Today these activities should be: to widen the news articles to international topics, to create

partnerships with nature organizations internationally or national organizations in the fields of birds,

butterflies, mammals and plants, to partner up with retail partners offering nature products, to start

connecting nature lovers to nature activities, to make customization of the platform possible and to

improve social media strategy to create more brand awareness and attract new people to the platform.

In the theoretical section the four types of business models for online companies by Weill and Woerner

(2015) have been introduced and was argued that the potential of Nature Today to grow towards an

ecosystem driver would be researched. Before this research the platform was placed in the supplier

category as customer knowledge was limited and potential loss of power was high because of their

dependency on content partners and advertisement incomes. The findings have shown great potential

for Nature Today to become a social nature platform, or nature lovers community, which can be linked

to the ecosystem driver business model. Requirement to become such a platform is in-depth

knowledge of the customer what should lead to great customer experience. Also added value for

content providers should be clear. This is the case for Nature Today because through the platform

content partners reach a larger public of nature lovers, the chance of gathering new members

increases, new participants for their nature activities can be found, it enhances the opportunities to

reach potential employers and they gain more insights in the interest of nature lovers which helps in

writing future news articles. With these benefits in mind for content partners, Nature Today justifies

the extraction of publishing fees from their content partners.

The increased popularity of business models in literature is linked to the rise of internet usage, because

companies saw new possibilities for revenue streams. The difference between the online businesses

described in theory and digital content providers, is that the latter lacks a physical product. Theory

indicates that for physical products it is important to perform better than your competitors in your

sector in terms of quality and price. For digital content this is different since much content is freely

available and thus lacks a price. As a result, this research highlighted that working together with your

competitors as partners in an economic ecosystem could create mutual benefits in terms of reaching

more customers, product quality and customer satisfaction – which all together opens possibilities for

new revenue streams. To stay popular as an economic ecosystem, a content provider constantly needs

to develop the platform on all channels where customers are active. This requires periodic researches

54

about customers wishes and needs. Furthermore, this research has shown other digital content

providers how to use business model elements to reflect upon own performances and how to gain

thorough insights on customers. As mentioned, these insights can be seen as the key resource of a

digital content provider and forms the basis for the key activities and the value proposition. It is

necessary for content providers to identify their core business (Weill and Woerner 2015) and create

their product or service better than any other platform could. This will require partnerships with

producers of complementary goods, for Nature Today this goes for retail partners, or with parties that

compete with your product in some ways, in this case the content produced by nature organizations,

NGO’s or research institutes.

The marketing of the content ultimately has to lead to new revenue streams, which connects to the

financial aim of Nature Today; being self-sustainable. Since digital content is homogeneous,

multipliable and intangible, it is hard to sell it as a product. People are used to free information and

even though the results show that visitors of Nature Today are very loyal, the majority would stop

visiting the platform if the content would be behind a pay-wall. This can be explained by the amount

of nature information available through nature organizations themselves, books, newspapers and

magazines or other nature websites. If Nature Today would be able to offer content that cannot be

seen anywhere else, for example in the form of webinars, this would increase the chance of implanting

a successful pay-wall. This could take the form of monthly or yearly subscriptions or pay-per-view. This

relates to the research of Pauwels and Weiss (2008) who indicated that companies that insert a pay-

wall but do not have superior content or set prices higher than the willingness to pay are likely to fail.

The ultimate value that Nature Today offers is their news articles, but this does not create the revenue.

This research has indicated that the mobilization of – and knowledge about the customers can be

turned into revenue sources. The revenue sources identified in this research all connect to the three

monetizing methods for digital content providers by Clemons (2009): selling real thing, virtual things

or selling access. The selling real things offers possibilities for the web shop and for activity organizers.

With information about visitors online purchase behavior Nature Today can approach retailers for a

collaboration to sell their products through the platform. The large user base and proof of potential

sales creates a mutual for both the retailer and Nature Today. The same argument can be applied to

nature activities, which are organized by content partners. The results showed that the visitors have a

need to inform themselves about these activities and are already involved in nature activities

themselves. In this way, the platform has the potential to function as a connector between nature

lovers and nature activity organizers.

What was unexpected to see in the findings was that people aged below 45 barely find their way to

the platform. This research looked at the channels through which this age group is active and their

interests in nature topics to see if the target audience can be expanded outside the older audience. In

terms of topics no relation was found, while the for the channels younger people seem slightly easier

to be reached through mobile applications and research publications. However, it is discussable when

focusing on these channels a wider audience in terms of age can be obtained. Nature seems to be most

attractive to the elderly. Especially the high percentage of retired people show the correlation between

time to spend and the interest in nature. Younger people have busy lives with work obligations, which

influences the time to spend on nature related activities. This suggests that a focus on targeting

younger people is not likely to have much success, because the daily work responsibilities will remain.

It is recommended to focus on the current target group of people aged 50 and over and try to improve

their satisfaction, so more people from these ages are attracted to the platform.

Summarized, for digital content providers offering a product that is qualitative superior is not enough.

It all start with customer knowledge, what their wishes and needs are, what kind of activities they do,

55

through which channels they are active. These insights should lead to diversification of the activities.

If the content does not match with these insights, the revenue streams will not be successful enough

to have a sustainable platform in the long-term. By constantly keeping track of changes in wishes and

needs organization or platform can adapt to the changing preferences of visitors. However, from the

definition of Morris et al. (2005) was distracted that personal factors also have an important influence

on business model success. Especially for Nature Today this is relevant, because the team behind the

platform is small and proposed changes will impact the time and energy spend on the website by the

employees. This might have implications for other activities done next to keeping the platform running

or might lead to less willingness to invest time in the platform, reducing the impact it could have.

Limitations The approach to this research and the process of obtaining results has some limitations that need to

be addressed. First of all, the use of one case study to draw general conclusions for multiple digital

content providers has its flaws (Tellis 1997). Although other researchers have argued that setting

objectives and correct parameters is more important than a large sample size, the outcomes of this

specific case might considerably be different than other cases. To overcome this limitation, this

research aimed to clearly specify all business model elements for the case. With these categorized

elements, also outcomes for each element can be generalized instead of the whole case study (Stake

1978).

The second limitations concerns the response group of the survey. The results showed that over twice

as much responses came from people who receive the daily newsletter of Nature Today, while in total

the number of people receiving this newsletter is equally divided between daily and weekly. The daily

visitors can be considered as more dedicated and enthusiastic visitors of the platform, which might

have caused the results to be more positive than they are in reality. The response group was pretty

homogeneous with a main focus on people between fifty and seventy years and highly educated. An

over representing group influences the results significantly and makes it harder to generalize results

for all age groups. Also, this research aims to improve customer satisfaction, but does so by targeting

the current visitors. This excludes people who have a general interest in nature, but do not yet know

about the existence of the platform. Their motives would have been a valuable addition to results.

The final limitation comes from the interpretation of the data. The design of the survey tried to clusters

answers, excluding answer possibilities or taking away nuance in answers. This could have led to

certain patterns or results that are slightly different in reality. Also the interpretation of qualitative

data was dependent of the researcher and might have been misunderstood or appointed to wrong

categories. Also no statistical analyses were performed on the data, making it difficult to interpret

whether some outcomes can be seen as a relation, correlation or significance of the results. Especially

for the social media strategy and the topics covered these analysis could have been helpful.

Recommendations for further research This research has identified the wishes and needs of the current visitors of the Nature Today platform.

As already mentioned under the limitations, it would be interesting to identify the wishes and needs

of people currently not visiting the website, but with an interest in nature. This could give new insights

in the key activities that Nature Today could do to attract a larger audience. If different age groups or

education level are included in this research, more reliable conclusion could be drawn to attract these

underrepresented groups. Also, this study looked at one case in a specific field to generalize for digital

content providers. It would be interesting to see in another research with a focus on a different case

whether the results are comparable or different. This could improve a general business model for

digital content providers even more.

56

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Appendix 1 – Survey questions

Enquête Nature Today

Welkom bij deze enquête van en over Nature Today. Nature Today is in 2008 opgericht als

Natuurbericht.nl en heeft sindsdien verschillende veranderingen ondergaan. Een zeer opvallende

verandering was de overgang naar Nature Today en de nieuwe website ongeveer een jaar geleden, het

uiterlijk van Nature Today is toen sterk veranderd. Om Nature Today verder te verbeteren en om meer

aan te sluiten bij uw wensen en behoeften nodigen wij u uit deze enquête in te vullen. Het invullen

duurt ongeveer … minuten. Alvast hartelijk bedankt!

1). Wat is uw geslacht?

□ Man

□ Vrouw

2). Wat is uw leeftijd?

…….. jaar (drop down menu met leeftijden)

3). Wat zijn de eerste vier cijfers van uw postcode?

□ Groningen

□ Friesland

□ Drenthe

□ Overijssel

□ Flevoland

□ Noord-Holland

□ Zuid-Holland

□ Utrecht

□ Gelderland

□ Limburg

□ Noord-Brabant

□ Zeeland

□ Ik woon in het buitenland, namelijk in … (drop down menu met landsnamen)

4). Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding?

□ Geen

□ Basisonderwijs

□ LBO/VMBO

□ HAVO/VWO

□ MBO

□ HBO

□ WO

5). Wat is uw gezinssituatie?

□ Alleenstaand

□ Alleenstaand met kinderen

□ Samenwonend zonder kinderen

□ Samenwonend met kinderen

60

6). Bij wat voor organisatie bent u werkzaam?

□ Non-profit natuurorganisatie

□ Universiteit/ kennisinstelling

□ Overheid

□ Groen bureau

□ Commercieel bedrijf

□ Zorginstelling

□ Agrarische onderneming

□ Media

□ Student/leerling

□ ZZP

□ Gepensioneerd

□ Werkzoekend

□ Geen

□ Overige, nl:

6a) Indien overheid: Bij welk type overheidsinstelling werkt u?

□ Landelijke overheid □ Provinciale overheid □ Lokale overheid □ Waterschap □ Rijkswaterstaat □ Staatsbosbeheer

6b1) Indien media: Voor welk type media werkt u?

□ Krant □ Internet □ Radio □ TV

6b2) Op welke schaal werkt u: □ Internationaal □ Nationaal □ Regionaal □ Lokaal

6b3) Bent u opgenomen in de media-database van Nature Today zodat u persberichten toegestuurd krijgt? □ Ja □ Nee ( bent u geïnteresseerd om notificaties te ontvangen?) □ Weet ik niet

6b4) Wat zou de nieuwswaardigheid van de natuurberichten op Nature Today kunnen vergroten? (open vragen)

6b5) Wat zou Nature Today kunnen doen om meer natuurberichten in het nieuws te krijgen?

6b6) Wat maakt het moeilijk om natuurnieuws geplaatst te krijgen?

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6c) Indien student/leerling: Op welke manier gebruikt u de informatie van Nature Today voor uw opleiding?

7). Doet u vrijwilligerswerk op gebied van natuur?

□ Ik doe waarnemingen □ Ik controleer waarnemingen □ Ik ben natuurgids □ Ik help bij onderwijs □ Ik help bij natuurbeheersactiviteiten □ Ik geef lezingen □ Nee, ik doe geen vrijwilligerswerk op gebied van natuur □ Anders, namelijk…

8). Waarom bezoekt u Nature Today (meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)?

□ Algemene interesse in natuur □ Eigen kennis over natuur te vergroten □ Soortenkennis te vergroten □ Op de hoogte blijven van de laatste ontwikkelingen in de natuur □ Volgen wat natuurorganisaties doen □ Te laten verwonderen over de natuur □ Om beter te kunnen genieten van de natuur □ Werkstuk maken (voor school) □ Voor informatie over natuuractiviteiten □ Voor mooie foto’s over de natuur □ Voor specifieke schrijvers □ Anders, namelijk…

9). Hoe vaak bezoekt u Nature Today?

□ Meerdere keren per dag □ (Bijna) dagelijks □ Meerdere keren per week □ Eén keer per week □ Meerdere keren per maand □ Minder dan één keer per maand

10). Welk deel van de dag bezoekt u de Nature Today website?

□ In de ochtend □ In de middag □ In de avond □ Meerdere delen van de dag □ Niet één specifiek dagdeel

11). Hoe lang bent u al een bezoeker van de NatureToday.com en voorheen Natuurbericht.nl?

□ Sinds een paar weken □ Sinds een paar maanden □ Sinds een jaar □ Tussen de 1 en 3 jaar □ Tussen 3 en 5 jaar □ 5 jaar of langer

62

12). Hoe weet u van het bestaan van Nature Today? □ Via zoekmachines zoals Google/Bing/Yahoo □ Via televisie, kranten of radio □ Via een natuurorganisatie die berichten plaatst op Nature Today □ Facebook □ Twitter □ Via vrienden/bekenden □ Ik weet het niet □ Anders, namelijk…

13). Over welke categorie(ën) leest u het liefst natuurberichten?

□ Amfibieën & Reptielen □ Caraïben □ Insecten □ Libellen □ Paddenstoelen □ Planten □ Strand & Zee □ Vissen □ Vlinders □ Vogels □ Zoogdieren □ Klimaat □ Opinie □ Geen voorkeur

14). Welke categorieën mist u nog op Nature Today? (Open vraag - Mogelijkheid creëren om niets in te vullen) 15). Wat vindt u over het algemeen van de lengte van natuurberichten?

□ Veel te kort □ Enigszins te kort □ Goed □ Enigszins te lang □ Veel te lang

16). Wat vindt u over het algemeen van het inhoudelijke niveau van de natuurberichten?

□ Veel te laag □ Enigszins te laag □ Goed □ Enigszins te hoog □ Veel te hoog

17). Wat vindt u over het algemeen van het taalgebruik van natuurberichten?

□ Veel te makkelijk □ Enigszins te makkelijk □ Goed □ Enigszins te moeilijk □ Veel te moeilijk

63

18). Hoe vaak bent u in de natuur te vinden?

□ Iedere dag

□ Twee/drie keer per week

□ Eén keer per week

□ Eén keer per twee weken

□ Eén keer per maand

□ Minder dan één keer per maand.

19). Als u in de natuur bent, met wie bent u daar dan?

□ Alleen

□ Samen met partner

□ Samen met kinderen

□ Samen met vrienden/bekenden

20). Als u in de natuur bent, welke activiteiten onderneemt u het liefst in de natuur?

□ Wandelen

□ Hardlopen

□ Fietsen

□ Fotograferen

□ Natuurwaarnemingen doen

□ Vissen

□ Tuinieren

□ Anders, namelijk…

21). Waar haalt u verder nog uw natuurinformatie vandaan? □ Televisie □ Kranten en tijdschriften □ Van natuurorganisaties waarvan ik lid ben □ Boeken □ Apps □ Nergens anders □ Anders, namelijk…

22). Welke natuurapps bezit en/of gebruikt u op dit moment?

□ Natuurmonumenten (Bijvoorbeeld: natuurroutes) □ Vogelapps (Bijvoorbeeld: Vogels van Europa) □ Natuur in Nederland □ Wandelapps □ Fietsapps □ ObSMapp □ NatureToday App □ Anders, namelijk… □ Geen

23). Van welke organisatie(s) bent u lid/donateur?

□ Dierenbescherming □ EIS Nederland □ Greenpeace □ FLORON

64

□ International Fund for Animal Welfare (NL) □ IVN □ KNNV □ LandschappenNL □ Milieudefensie □ Natuurmonumenten □ Nederlandse Mycologische Vereniging □ Proefdiervrij □ RAVON □ SOVON Vogelonderzoek □ Stichting AAP □ Stichting Anemoon □ Vlinderstichting □ Vogelbescherming □ Waddenvereniging □ Wereld Natuur Fonds □ World Animal Protection Nederland □ Zoogdiervereniging □ Anders, namelijk… □ Geen

24). Wat voor informatie over natuur in het buitenland zou u interessant vinden om te lezen op Nature Today? (open vraag) 25). Zou u natuurberichten over natuur in het buitenland lezen als ze alleen in het Engels beschikbaar zouden zijn?

□ Ja □ Nee □ Misschien

26). Zou u interesse hebben in deelname aan (natuur)activiteiten, georganiseerd door de organisaties die berichten schrijven op de website van Nature Today?

□ Ja, van specifieke organisaties □ Ja, van alle organisaties ben ik hierin geïnteresseerd □ Nee, ik heb hierin geen interesse

26a) Indien Ja. Over welke activiteiten zou geïnformeerd willen worden?

□ Lezingen □ Nieuwe publicaties □ Landelijke dagen □ Monitoringsactiviteiten □ Cursussen □ Anders, namelijk…

27). Bent u geabonneerd op de nieuwsbrief van Nature Today?

□ Ja, ik ontvang de nieuwsbrief dagelijks □ Ja, ik ontvang de nieuwsbrief wekelijks □ Nee, ik wist niet dat er een nieuwsbrief bestond □ Nee, ik heb geen behoefte aan de nieuwsbrief

65

28). Zou u bereid zijn een bedrag te betalen voor het lezen van de natuurberichten van Nature Today?

□ Ja □ Ja, mits er een aantal zaken worden toegevoegd of veranderd □ Ja, maar alleen aan een specifieke organisatie □ Ja, als daardoor de reclame op de website wel verdwijnt □ Nee, maar ik zou andere opties (meer reclame) wel toestaan □ Nee

28a). Indien Ja: Op welke manier zou u een bijdrage willen leveren?

□ Eenmalige donatie van bedrag □ Maandelijkse bijdrage □ Jaarlijkse bijdrage □ Zeer kleine bijdrage per te lezen artikel □ Bedrag voor een specifieke organisatie

28b). Indien Ja, mits er een aantal zaken worden toegevoegd of veranderd Wat zou er aan natuurberichten of aan Nature Today moeten worden toegevoegd of veranderd? (Open vraag)

Een deel van de inkomsten van Nature Today komt van advertenties. Deze advertenties bevinden zich in de vorm van banners op de website en worden winstgevender naarmate meer bezoekers hierop klikken. 29). Bent u zich bewust van de advertenties op de website van Nature Today?

o Ja, en ik klik er af en toe ook op. o Ja, maar ik scrol er altijd langs. o Nee, ik ben me daar niet van bewust o Nee, ik zie geen advertenties op de website.

Nature Today heeft ook een webshop. Een percentage van het aankoopbedrag van de artikelen die worden verkocht via de website, gaan naar Nature Today. 30). Hebt u weleens gekeken naar de webshop op de website van Nature Today?

o Ja, en ik koop er regelmatig spullen o Ja, en ik heb er ooit weleens wat gekocht o Ja, maar ik heb er nog nooit wat gekocht o Nee, ik ben daarmee niet bekend o Nee, ik ben daarin niet geïnteresseerd

Natuurmonitoring

31). Hoe vaak geeft u natuurwaarnemingen door? □ Dagelijks □ Een aantal keren per week

□ Eén keer per week □ Aantal keren per maand □ Minder dan één keer per maand □ Nooit

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31a) Indien Ja: Van welke soortgroepen geeft u waarnemingen door?

□ Bomen, struiken en (bloeiende) planten

□ Mossen en korstmossen

□ Algen en kranswieren

□ Paddenstoelen en schimmels

□ Zoogdieren

□ Vogels

□ Vissen

□ Amfibieën en reptielen

□ Vlinder en libellen

□ Overige insecten en andere ongewervelden

□ Anders, nl:

31b) Op welke manier geeft u weleens waarnemingen door?

□ Via waarneming.nl

□ Via telmee.nl

□ Via de websites van soortenorganisaties

□ Via telprojecten (bijv. meetnetten of de jaarrond tuintelling)

□ Niet

□ Anders, namelijk: ….

31c) Heeft u weleens waarnemingen doorgegeven aan De Natuurkalender of Muggenradar via de waarnemingenformulieren op Nature Today? □ Ja, voor De Natuurkalender □ Ja, voor de Muggenradar □ Nee

31d) Op welke manier helpt de informatie op Nature Today u met het doen van

waarnemingen?

□ Attenderen op waar op dat moment gelet moet worden

□ Herkenning van soorten

□ Attenderen op bestaan van waarnemingsprojecten

□ Belang van monitoring verduidelijken

□ Instructie hoe waarnemingen gedaan moeten worden

□ Motiveren om waarnemingen in te sturen

□ Identificeren van interessante gebieden om waarnemingen te doen

□ Anders, namelijk…

32). Bent u geïnteresseerd in berichten over een van de volgende onderwerpen?

□ Waarnemingsprojecten

□ Herkennen van soorten

□ Resultaten van waarnemingsprojecten

□ Hoe natuurwaarnemingen het beste gedaan kunnen worden

67

□ Methoden en technieken om waarnemingen te analyseren

□ Innovaties om waarnemingen te doen

□ Geen interesse in bovenstaande onderwerpen

Natuurbeleid

33). Bent u geïnteresseerd in berichten over een van de volgende onderwerpen?

□ Politieke ontwikkelingen op gebied van natuur

□ Ontwikkelingen in provinciaal natuurbeleid

□ Ontwikkelingen in nationaal natuurbeleid

□ Ontwikkelingen in Europees natuurbeleid

□ Campagnes/projecten/initiatieven die natuurbeleid proberen te beïnvloeden

□ Geen interesse in bovenstaande onderwerpen

Natuurbeheer

34). Bent u geïnteresseerd in berichten over een van de volgende onderwerpen?

□ Succesvolle maatregelen/projecten op gebied van natuurbeheer

□ Invloed van beheer op natuur

□ Nieuwe inzichten op gebied van natuurbeheer

□ Uitdagingen op gebied van natuurbeheer

□ Invloed van natuurwaarnemingen op natuurbeheer

□ Geen interesse in bovenstaande onderwerpen

35) Bent u betrokken bij natuurbeheer en -beleid activiteiten?

□ Ja

□ Nee

35a) Indien ja: Hoe bent u betrokken bij natuurbeheer en -beleid?

□ Inrichting

□ Onderhoud

□ Planning

□ Handhaving

□ Vergunningverlening

□ Monitoring

□ Evaluatie

□ Natuurontwikkeling

□ Agrarisch natuurbeheer

□ Exoten

□ Overig

35b) Hoe goed weet u welke organisaties expertise hebben op het gebied van beheer en

beleid?

68

35c) Weet u wie u bij de organisaties moet benaderen als u vragen heeft over

natuurbeheer en –beleid?

Webinars zijn video’s over een bepaald natuuronderwerp waarin een specialist uitleg geeft. In deze video’s wordt dieper ingegaan op een bepaald natuurfenomeen, diersoort of plantensoort. 36). Bent u geïnteresseerd in het bekijken van een webinar over onderstaande onderwerpen?

□ Herkenning van planten- en diersoorten □ Uitleg over hoe je het beste natuurwaarnemingen kunt doen □ Onderzoeksresultaten □ Opvallende ontwikkelingen in de natuur □ Onderwerpen over natuurbeleid □ Functionaliteiten van Nature Today □ Interessante natuurgebieden □ Diverse ecologische processen □ Ik heb geen interesse in het bekijken van webinars □ Anders namelijk…

37). Wat zou voor u Nature Today nog meer verbeteren?

□ Locatie gebonden natuurinformatie □ Notificaties over natuurnieuws in de omgeving □ Geattendeerd worden op nieuwe publicaties van bepaalde organisaties □ Geattendeerd worden op nieuwe publicaties van bepaalde auteurs □ Meer verhalen □ Zelf de site in te kunnen richten naar eigen wensen □ Meer artikelen over internationale natuur □ Informatie over specifieke natuurgebieden □ Informatie over activiteiten en evenementen over natuur (activiteitenkalender) □ Informatie over activiteiten en evenementen in de natuur (activiteitenkalender) □ Geen mening □ Anders, namelijk…

38). Op welke sociale media bent u actief?

□ Facebook □ Twitter □ Instagram □ Snapchat □ Whatsapp □ Anders, namelijk… □ Geen

38a) Indien ergens actief Deelt u weleens natuurberichten via sociale media?

□ Ja □ Nee

39). Via welke mediakanalen zou u graag door Nature Today geïnformeerd worden?

□ Website □ Nature Today app □ Facebook □ Twitter □ Instagram □ Snapchat

69

□ Emailnieuwsbrief □ Anders namelijk...

40). Hoe overzichtelijk vindt u de website van Nature Today?

□ Zeer overzichtelijk □ Redelijk overzichtelijk □ Neutraal □ Redelijk onoverzichtelijk □ Zeer onoverzichtelijk

40a). (Bij onoverzichtelijk) Waar zijn volgens u nog verbeterpunten mogelijk?

41). Heeft u Nature Today weleens aanbevolen of onder de aandacht gebracht bij vrienden of bekenden?

□ Ja, ik doe dit regelmatig □ Ja, ik heb dit een enkele keer gedaan □ Nee, ik heb dit nog nooit gedaan

42). Heeft u nog algemene aanbevelingen om Nature Today te verbeteren?

70

Appendix 2 – AtlasTI

Figure 15: Names of codes, how often used, used in which groups

Figure 16: Examples of coded text

71

Figure 17: All questions that were coded including number of quotations per question

Figure 18: Example of codetree from Atlas Ti

72

Codes used: Activiteiten, actualiteit, afval opruimen, App Nature Today, bedreigde diersoorten, Belgische lezers, Belgische natuurorganisaties, bijen, biodiversiteit, bodemdieren, bomen/bossen, buitenland, collega, cursus, ecologie, educatie, eigen gebruik, eigen tuin, enquête gerelateerd, Europa, exoten, Facebook, foto’s, geen onderwerpen, geen verbeterpunten, geologie, geschiedenis, gespecialiseerde soortensites, Google, grensgebieden, heelal, honden, insecten, internet, IVN, jagen, klimaat, lay-out, libellen, lokale natuurorganisatie, meer verdieping, mens en natuur, microbiologie, migratie, mossen, natuurbeheer/natuurbeleid, natuurbericht.nl, natuurcentrum, natuurgebieden, natuurgids, natuurkalender, natuurontwikkeling, natuurpunt.be, nieuwsbrief, nooit bezocht, Noord- en Zuidpool, onbekend, onderzoek, ontdekking soortengroepen, opinie, paarden, paddenstoelen, planten, politiek, reclame, regenwoud, regionale natuurorganisaties, reptielen/amfibieën, rewilding, slakken, specifieke natuurorganisatie, specifieke onderwerpen, specifieke soortengroepen, sporten overig, tekstkwaliteit, Twitter, vakbladen, vergelijkbare onderwerpen, verspreidingsatlas, vlinders, vogels, vrienden/kennissen, vrijwilligerswerk, vroege vogels, Waarneming.nl, waarnemingen, Wageningen Universiteit, water/waterdieren, werk gerelateerd, Wikipedia, zoekfunctie, zoogdieren.

Table 18: Codes used in coding qualitative data

73

Appendix 3 – Survey results

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Algemene interesse in natuur

1460 85.48%

2 Om eigen kennis over natuur te vergroten

1254 73.42%

3 Om soortenkennis te vergroten

726 42.51%

4 Om op de hoogte blijven van de laatste ontwikkelingen in de natuur

1347 78.86%

5 Om te volgen wat natuurorganisaties doen

579 33.90%

6 Om me te laten verwonderen over de natuur

555 32.49%

7 Om beter te kunnen genieten van de natuur

372 21.78%

8 Om een werkstuk te maken (voor school)

7 0.41%

9 Voor informatie over natuuractiviteiten

208 12.18%

10 Voor mooie foto's over natuur

259 15.16%

11 Voor specifieke schrijvers

22 1.29%

12 Anders, namelijk:

71 4.16%

Total 6860 100.00%

Website Nature Today

Waarom bezoekt u NatureToday.com?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

74

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Meerdere keren per dag 58 3.40%

2 (Bijna) dagelijks 875 51.29%

3 Meerdere keren per week 297 17.41%

4 Eén keer per week 327 19.17%

5 Meerdere keren per maand 93 5.45%

6 Minder dan één keer per maand 56 3.28%

Total 1706 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Via zoekmachines zoals Google/Bing/Yahoo 141 8.26%

2 Via televisie, kranten of radio 18 1.06%

3 Via websites 231 13.54%

4 Via een natuurorganisatie die berichten plaatst op Nature Today 444 26.03%

5 Facebook 34 1.99%

6 Twitter 14 0.82%

7 Via vrienden/bekenden 328 19.23%

8 Ik weet het niet 320 18.76%

9 Anders, namelijk: 176 10.32%

Total 1706 100.00%

Hoe vaak bezoekt u NatureToday.com?

Hoe weet u van het bestaan van Nature Today?

75

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Amfibieën & reptielen

712 41.71%

2 Caraïben

86 5.04%

3 Insecten

799 46.81%

4 Libellen

725 42.47%

5 Paddenstoelen

638 37.38%

6 Planten

905 53.02%

7 Strand & Zee

429 25.13%

8 Vissen

420 24.60%

9 Vlinders

988 57.88%

10 Vogels

1218 71.35%

11 Zoogdieren

960 56.24%

12 Klimaat

611 35.79%

13 Opinie

301 17.63%

14 Geen voorkeur

273 15.99%

Total 9065 100.00%

Over welke categorie(ën) leest u het liefst natuurberichten?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

76

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Zeer overzichtelijk

689 40.77%

2 Redelijk overzichtelijk

747 44.20%

3 Neutraal

202 11.95%

4 Redelijk onoverzichtelijk

37 2.19%

5 Zeer onoverzichtelijk

15 0.89%

Total 1690 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja

790 47.31%

2 Nee

485 29.04%

3 Misschien

395 23.65%

Total 1670 100.00%

Hoe overzichtelijk vindt u de website van Nature Today?

Zou u natuurberichten over natuur in het buitenland lezen als ze alleen in het Engels beschikbaar zouden zijn?

77

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja

1019 61.09%

2 Nee

649 38.91%

Total 1668 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Lezingen

487 48.27%

2 Nieuwe publicaties

685 67.89%

3 Landelijke dagen

473 46.88%

4 Monitoringsactiviteiten

451 44.70%

5 Cursussen

474 46.98%

6 Anders, namelijk:

68 6.74%

Total 2638 100.00%

Zou u via NatureToday.com geïnformeerd willen worden over (natuur)activiteiten, georganiseerd door de organisaties die berichten schrijven op NatureToday.com?

Over welke activiteiten zou geïnformeerd willen worden? (Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

78

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ik doe niet mee aan speciale activiteiten

223 34.79%

2 Ik gebruik andere kanalen om hierover geïnformeerd te worden

306 47.74%

3 Anders, namelijk:

112 17.47%

Total 641 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja, ik ontvang de nieuwsbrief dagelijks

884 53.03%

2 Ja, ik ontvang de nieuwsbrief wekelijks

418 25.07%

3 Nee, ik wist niet dat er een nieuwsbrief bestond

182 10.92%

4 Nee, ik heb geen behoefte aan de nieuwsbrief

183 10.98%

Total 1667 100.00%

Waarom wilt u niet over deze activiteiten geïnformeerd worden?

Bent u geabonneerd op de nieuwsbrief van Nature Today?

79

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja, en ik klik er af en toe ook op

257 15.83%

2 Ja, maar ik scrol er altijd langs

711 43.78%

3 Nee, ik ben me daar niet van bewust

515 31.71%

4 Nee, ik zie geen advertenties op de website

141 8.68%

Total 1624 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja, en ik heb er ooit weleens wat via gekocht

25 1.54%

2 Ja, maar ik heb er nog nooit wat via gekocht

351 21.57%

3 Nee, maar ik ben wel geïnteresseerd om de webshop eens te bezoeken

703 43.21%

4 Nee, en ik ben er niet in geïnteresseerd

548 33.68%

Financieel

Een deel van de inkomsten van Nature Today komt van advertenties. Deze advertenties bevinden zich in de vorm van banners op de website en leveren meer op naarmate meer bezoekers hierop klikken.

Bent u zich bewust van de advertenties op de website van Nature Today?

Nature Today heeft ook een webshop. Een percentage van het aankoopbedrag van de artikelen die worden gekocht via een doorklik vanuit de webshop van NatureToday.com gaat naar Nature Today.

Bent u bekend met de webshop op NatureToday.com?

80

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Boeken en tijdschriften

1096 68.29%

2 Cadeaus en gadgets

398 24.80%

3 Kleding

437 27.23%

4 Eten en drinken

117 7.29%

5 Elektronica en witgoed

458 28.54%

6 Hard- en software

361 22.49%

7 Reizen en hotels/accommodaties

642 40.00%

8 Huis en tuin

364 22.68%

9 Huisdieren/hobbydieren

193 12.02%

10 Telecommunicatie

247 15.39%

11 Muziek en video

330 20.56%

12 Gezondheid en verzorging

179 11.15%

13 Dating

13 0.81%

14 Financiële producten

65 4.05%

15 Anders, nl..

48 2.99%

16 Ik doe nooit online aankopen

268 16.70%

Voor welke van onderstaande productcategorieën doet u wel eens online/mobiel aankopen?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

81

Page Break

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja

495 30.84%

2 Nee

1110 69.16%

Total 1605 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 1 tot 5 euro

96 19.71%

2 6 tot 15 euro

254 52.16%

3 16 tot 25 euro

115 23.61%

4 26 tot 50 euro

20 4.11%

5 51 tot 100 euro

1 0.21%

6 Meer dan 100 euro

1 0.21%

Total 487 100.00%

Zou u bereid zijn een financiële bijdrage te geven aan Nature Today om het in stand te houden?

Hoeveel zou u bereid zijn om jaarlijks te doneren?

82

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Non-profit natuurorganisatie 313 19.49%

2 Universiteit/kennisinstelling

75 4.67%

3 Overheid

165 10.27%

4 Groen bureau

61 3.80%

5 Commercieel bedrijf

167 10.40%

6 Zorginstelling

65 4.05%

7 Agrarische onderneming

27 1.68%

8 Media/journalistiek

27 1.68%

10 Student/leerling

37 2.30%

11 ZZP

78 4.86%

12 Gepensioneerd

619 38.54%

13 Werkzoekend

52 3.24%

14 Geen

128 7.97%

15 Anders, namelijk:

178 11.08%

16 Onderwijs (HBO, MBO, middelbaar onderwijs, basisonderwijs)

106 6.60%

Total 2098 100.00%

Werk en interesses

Bij wat voor organisatie(s) bent u werkzaam?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

83

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Landelijke overheid

48 29.45%

2 Provinciale overheid

27 16.56%

3 Lokale overheid

60 36.81%

4 Waterschap

13 7.98%

5 Rijkswaterstaat

2 1.23%

6 Staatsbosbeheer

5 3.07%

7 Anders, namelijk:

23 14.11%

Total 178 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Krant 11 42.31%

2 Weekblad/maandblad 12 46.15%

3 Internet 13 50.00%

4 Radio 2 7.69%

5 TV 4 15.38%

Total 42 100.00%

Bij welk type overheidsinstelling bent u werkzaam?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

Voor welk type media werkt u?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

84

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Internationaal

4 15.38%

2 Nationaal

17 65.38%

3 Regionaal

8 30.77%

4 Lokaal

2 7.69%

Total 31 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja

2 7.41%

2 Nee

19 70.37%

3 Weet ik niet

6 22.22%

Total 27 100.00%

Op welke schaal werkt u?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

Bent u opgenomen in de mediadatabase van Nature Today zodat u persberichten toegestuurd krijgt?

85

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ik doe waarnemingen

827 51.75%

2 Ik controleer waarnemingen

97 6.07%

3 Ik doe systematische tellingen (MAS, BMP, watervogels)

279 17.46%

4 Ik ben natuurgids

361 22.59%

5 Ik help bij onderwijs

144 9.01%

6 Ik help bij natuurbeheeractiviteiten

391 24.47%

7 Ik geef lezingen

212 13.27%

8 Ik zit in het bestuur van een natuurorganisatie

230 14.39%

9 Anders, namelijk:

230 14.39%

10 Nee, ik doe geen vrijwilligerswerk op het gebied van natuur

424 26.53%

Total 3195 100.00%

Natuurbeleving

Welk vrijwilligerswerk doet u op het gebied van natuur?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

86

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Iedere dag 375 23.39%

2 Twee/drie keer per week 685 42.73%

3 Eén keer per week 333 20.77%

4 Eén keer per twee weken 119 7.42%

5 Eén keer per maand 50 3.12%

6 Minder dan één keer per maand 41 2.56%

Total 1603 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Wandelen 1348 84.14%

2 Hardlopen 148 9.24%

3 Fietsen 705 44.01%

4 Fotograferen 796 49.69%

5 Natuurwaarnemingen doen 981 61.24%

6 Systematische monitoring 293 18.29%

7 Vogels kijken 987 61.61%

8 Vissen 59 3.68%

9 Duiken 38 2.37%

10 Tuinieren 631 39.39%

11 Anders, namelijk: 183 11.42%

Total 6169 100.00%

Hoe vaak bent u in de natuur te vinden?

Als u in de natuur bent, welke activiteiten onderneemt u dan?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

87

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Nature Today

1397 86.99%

2 Televisie

685 42.65%

3 Kranten en tijdschriften

942 58.66%

4 Wetenschappelijke publicaties

677 42.15%

5 Van natuurorganisaties waarvan ik lid ben

1127 70.17%

6 Boeken

1132 70.49%

7 Apps

342 21.30%

8 Bezoekerscentra

343 21.36%

9 Lezingen

500 31.13%

10 Internet, via website(s):

783 48.75%

11 Anders, namelijk:

112 6.97%

12 Nergens anders

13 0.81%

Total 8053 100.00%

Waar haalt u uw natuurinformatie vandaan?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

88

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Natuurmonumenten (bijvoorbeeld: natuurroutes) 279 17.48%

2 Vogelapps 600 37.59%

3 Plantenapps 309 19.36%

4 Insectenapps 197 12.34%

5 Herpetofauna app 145 9.09%

6 Natuur in Nederland 91 5.70%

7 Wandelapps 218 13.66%

8 Fietsapps 150 9.40%

9 ObSMapp/iObs 328 20.55%

10 NatureToday App 146 9.15%

11 Anders, namelijk: 103 6.45%

12 Geen 686 42.98%

Total 3252 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Wadvogels 223 37.48%

2 Tuinvogels 211 35.46%

3 Vogels van Europa 278 46.72%

4 Vogels in Nederland 260 43.70%

5 Anders, namelijk: 97 16.30%

Total 1069 100.00%

Welke natuurapps bezit en/of gebruikt u op dit moment?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

Welke vogelapps gebruikt u?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

89

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Dierenbescherming

123 7.74%

2 EIS Nederland

68 4.28%

3 Greenpeace

332 20.88%

4 FLORON

117 7.36%

5 International Fund for Animal Welfare (NL)

31 1.95%

6 IVN

343 21.57%

7 KNNV

310 19.50%

8 LandschappenNL

271 17.04%

9 Milieudefensie 168 10.57%

10 Natuurmonumenten

741 46.60%

11 Nederlandse Mycologische Vereniging 57 3.58%

12 Proefdiervrij

36 2.26%

13 RAVON

112 7.04%

14 SOVON Vogelonderzoek

237 14.91%

15 Stichting AAP

77 4.84%

16 Stichting Anemoon 16 1.01%

17 Vereniging Nederlands Cultuurlandschap

53 3.33%

18 Vlinderstichting

217 13.65%

19 Vogelbescherming

648 40.75%

20 Waddenvereniging

132 8.30%

21 Wereld Natuur Fonds 291 18.30%

22 Werkgroep Grauwe Kiekendief

13 0.82%

23 Werkgroep Roofvogels Nederland 51 3.21%

24 World Animal Protection Nederland

18 1.13%

25 Zoogdiervereniging

96 6.04%

26 Anders, namelijk: 550 34.59%

27 Geen

179 11.26%

Total 5287 100.00%

Van welke organisatie(s) bent u lid/donateur?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

90

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Dagelijks 69 4.34%

2 Een aantal keren per week 223 14.02%

3 Eén keer per week 108 6.79%

4 Aantal keren per maand 239 15.02%

5 Maximaal één keer per maand 363 22.82%

6 Nooit 589 37.02%

Total 1591 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Bomen, struiken en (bloeiende) planten 375 38.46%

2 Mossen en korstmossen 78 8.00%

3 Algen en kranswieren 24 2.46%

4 Paddenstoelen en schimmels 217 22.26%

5 Zoogdieren 463 47.49%

6 Vogels 772 79.18%

7 Vissen 121 12.41%

8 Amfibieën en reptielen 346 35.49%

9 Vlinders en libellen 517 53.03%

10 Overige insecten en andere ongewervelden 276 28.31%

11 Anders, namelijk: 63 6.46%

Total 3252 100.00%

Natuurmonitoring

Hoe vaak geeft u natuurwaarnemingen door?

Van welke soortgroepen geeft u waarnemingen door?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

91

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Via Waarneming.nl 658 67.49%

2 Via Telmee.nl 125 12.82%

3 Via de websites van soortenorganisaties 152 15.59%

4 Via telprojecten (bijv. meetnetten of de jaarrond tuintelling) 280 28.72%

5 Via NatureToday.com (Natuurkalender en Muggenradar) 43 4.41%

6 Anders, namelijk: 231 23.69%

7 Niet 15 1.54%

Total 1504 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Attenderen op waar op dat moment op gelet moet worden 522 53.81%

2 Herkenning van soorten 446 45.98%

3 Attenderen op bestaan van waarnemingsprojecten 204 21.03%

4 Belang van monitoring verduidelijken 136 14.02%

5 Instructie hoe waarnemingen gedaan moeten worden 114 11.75%

6 Motiveren om waarnemingen in te sturen 210 21.65%

7 Laat zien waar de waarnemingen voor gebruikt worden 248 25.57%

8 Identificeren van interessante gebieden om waarnemingen te doen 216 22.27%

9 Anders, namelijk: 23 2.37%

10 Niet, Nature Today is niet van invloed op mijn waarnemingen 219 22.58%

Total 2338 100.00%

Op welke manier geeft u weleens waarnemingen door?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

Op welke manier helpt de informatie op NatureToday.com u met het doen van waarnemingen?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

92

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Waarnemingsprojecten 583 37.64%

2 Resultaten van waarnemingsprojecten 877 56.62%

3 Herkennen van soorten 949 61.27%

4 Hoe natuurwaarnemingen het beste gedaan kunnen worden 532 34.34%

5 Methoden en technieken om waarnemingen te analyseren 400 25.82%

6 Innovaties om waarnemingen te doen 465 30.02%

7 Anders, namelijk: 24 1.55%

8 Geen interesse in bovenstaande onderwerpen 116 7.49%

Total 3946 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Politieke ontwikkelingen op gebied van natuur 850 54.84%

2 Ontwikkelingen in provinciaal natuurbeleid 903 58.26%

3 Ontwikkelingen in nationaal natuurbeleid 979 63.16%

4 Ontwikkelingen in Europees natuurbeleid 863 55.68%

5 Campagnes/projecten/initiatieven die natuurbeleid proberen te beïnvloeden 620 40.00%

6 Anders, namelijk: 55 3.55%

7 Geen interesse in bovenstaande onderwerpen 144 9.29%

Total 4414 100.00%

Natuurwaarnemingen

Over welke van de onderstaande natuurwaarnemingonderwerpen zou u berichten op

NatureToday.com willen zien?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

Natuurbeleid

Over welke van de onderstaande natuurbeleidonderwerpen zou u berichten op NatureToday.com

willen zien?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

93

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Succesvolle maatregelen/projecten op gebied van natuurbeheer

1119 72.15%

2 Invloed van beheer op natuur

1140 73.50%

3 Nieuwe inzichten op gebied van natuurbeheer

1168 75.31%

4 Uitdagingen op gebied van natuurbeheer

760 49.00%

5 Invloed van natuurwaarnemingen op natuurbeheer

856 55.19%

6 Anders, namelijk:

44 2.84%

7 Geen interesse in bovenstaande onderwerpen

64 4.13%

Total 5151 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja

630 40.80%

2 Nee

914 59.20%

Total 1544 100.00%

Natuurbeheer

Over welke van de onderstaande natuurbeheeronderwerpen zou u berichten op NatureToday.com

willen zien?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

Bent u betrokken bij natuurbeheer en natuurbeleid?

94

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Inrichting

196 31.41%

2 Onderhoud

318 50.96%

3 Planning

125 20.03%

4 Handhaving

84 13.46%

5 Vergunningverlening

41 6.57%

6 Monitoring

333 53.37%

7 Evaluatie

139 22.28%

8 Natuurontwikkeling

232 37.18%

9 Agrarisch natuurbeheer

103 16.51%

10 Exoten

83 13.30%

11 Anders, namelijk:

107 17.15%

Total 1761 100.00%

Hoe bent u betrokken bij natuurbeheer en natuurbeleid?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

95

Page Break

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Herkenning van planten- en diersoorten

939 60.58%

2 Uitleg over hoe je het beste natuurwaarnemingen kunt doen

445 28.71%

3 Onderzoeksresultaten

494 31.87%

4 Opvallende ontwikkelingen in de natuur

907 58.52%

5 Onderwerpen over natuurbeleid en -beheer

537 34.65%

6 Functionaliteiten van Nature Today

125 8.06%

7 Interessante natuurgebieden

786 50.71%

8 Diverse ecologische processen

709 45.74%

9 Anders, namelijk:

39 2.52%

10 Ik heb geen interesse in het bekijken van webinars

236 15.23%

Total 5217 100.00%

Webinars

Webinars zijn video’s over een bepaald natuuronderwerp waarin een specialist uitleg geeft. In deze video’s wordt dieper ingegaan op een bepaald natuurfenomeen, diersoort of plantensoort.

Over welke van onderstaande onderwerpen zou u webinar willen bekijken? (Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

96

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Facebook

637 41.10%

2 Twitter

193 12.45%

3 Instagram

114 7.35%

4 Snapchat

20 1.29%

5 Whatsapp

822 53.03%

6 Anders, namelijk:

124 8.00%

7 Geen

481 31.03%

Total 2391 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Ja

540 52.43%

2 Nee

490 47.57%

Total 1030 100.00%

Sociale media

Op welke sociale media bent u actief?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

Deelt u weleens natuurberichten via sociale media?

97

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Website

855 55.77%

2 Nature Today app

300 19.57%

3 Facebook

228 14.87%

4 Twitter

78 5.09%

5 Instagram

30 1.96%

6 Snapchat

5 0.33%

7 Emailnieuwsbrief

1057 68.95%

8 Anders namelijk:

34 2.22%

Total 2587 100.00%

Via welke mediakanalen zou u graag door Nature Today geïnformeerd worden?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

98

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Locatiegebonden natuurinformatie

565 36.90%

2 Notificaties over natuurnieuws in de omgeving

486 31.74%

3 Geattendeerd worden op nieuwe publicaties van bepaalde organisaties

461 30.11%

4 Geattendeerd worden op nieuwe publicaties van bepaalde auteurs

226 14.76%

5 Meer verhalen

133 8.69%

6 Meer opinieverhalen

140 9.14%

7 Zelf de site in te kunnen richten naar eigen wensen

49 3.20%

8 Meer verhalen over internationale natuur

339 22.14%

9 Informatie over specifieke natuurgebieden

635 41.48%

10 Informatie over activiteiten en evenementen over natuur (activiteitenkalender)

363 23.71%

11 Informatie over activiteiten en evenementen in de natuur (activiteitenkalender)

310 20.25%

12 Geen mening

338 22.08%

13 Anders, namelijk:

58 3.79%

Total 4103 100.00%

Verbeteringen

Wat zou voor u Nature Today nog meer verbeteren?

(Meerdere antwoorden mogelijk)

99

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Man

1002 67.66%

2 Vrouw

479 32.34%

Total 1481 100.00%

# Question Responses Mean

1 Leeftijd 1500 58.65

Algemene informatie

Wat is uw geslacht?

Wat is uw leeftijd?

100

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Geen

14 0.96%

2 Basisonderwijs

27 1.85%

3 LBO/VMBO

105 7.18%

4 HAVO/VWO

145 9.92%

5 MBO

205 14.02%

6 HBO

531 36.32%

7 WO

435 29.75%

Total 1462 100.00%

# Answer Bar Response %

1 Alleenstaand 366 24.68%

2 Alleenstaand met kinderen

36 2.43%

3 Samenwonend met kinderen

312 21.04%

4 Samenwonend zonder kinderen

769 51.85%

Total 1483 100.00%

Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding?

Wat is uw gezinssituatie?