My Audience Research

What I wanted to find out

I wanted to find out whether females agreed with my opinion of their being a niche in the market for music magazines specifically aimed at females. I wanted to know whether they thought a music magazine aimed at them would be something they’re interested in and then if so, what sort of genre to base the magazine around. To find this out I asked about their tastes in music, and television programmes, I also asked about their disposable income and what they currently spend their spare money on. Because I was aiming my magazine at females I specifically only asked females, I also had another specific about my research; I wanted my magazine to be based around celebrity gossip and the inside scandals of their lives, including fashion and interviews, almost like a women's lifestyle magazine but based on celebrities in the music industry. Therefore I wanted to find out why they usually buy magazines, and what they watch on TV, to see if they are interested in reality tv and the gossip, x-tra programmes such as ‘x-tra factor’ as my magazine would be based a lot around the sort of content in these programmes. I wanted to find out if females would be interested in my magazine, so I explained what I was wanting to create and asked if they would be interested. Another reason I asked about their income and purchases was for the advertising revenue in the magazine to help me create a mood board.

My dataI decided to find out all of this information by using a questionnaire. I distributed 20 questions by hand, instead of using a computer method such as survey monkey. I did this because it was then easier for me to choose and know who it was answering my questions and my target audience was specific in gender and age.

Because I used a questionnaire the data I collected was quantitative instead of qualitative, this means my data will be in the form of numbers and statistics as opposed to meanings behind why people chose the answers they did. My method was also first hand and I created the questionnaire, which makes my research primary research. This type of data is good for me as I didn’t want to find out an understanding of why the women in my target audience listened to a type of music genre, or a particular TV programme, I just wanted to know if there were enough of them watching the programmes specific to my genre of magazine to make my magazine worth while, and which genre of music was most popular, so I could include this mainly in my music magazine. If I wanted to know why they chose this genre or have an insight into their response I would have a qualitative methods such as unstructured interviews. My method wasn’t time consuming and it lets me create graphs and charts to show my data. Because I only asked 20 people my results wont be as a whole, very representative of my target population, also because my method was quantitative I wont receive valid data. However all of my questions were closed, apart from including a ‘if other please specify’ box, and I knew who the questionnaires were going out to, therefore my answers are a true picture of what the women actually thought, making my data valid. On a couple of my questions however I included an ‘other’ box , which would come under qualitative data. However only one person used this box on one question, so the majority of my research was quantitative.

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that I distributed to 20 people. As you can see I have a range of questions from age to disposable income, from favourite music genre to TV programmes.

My results

16-1845%

19-2140%

26-3015%

How old are you?The age of my respondents As you can see from the pie chart, most of my audience research was based on the opinions of 16-18 year olds, closely followed by 19-21 year olds. There was no answers from 22-25 year olds. This tells me that I should aim my magazine now at 16-21 year olds rather than such a large range to 30 year olds. However 15% of my respondents were ages 26-30 so, depending on their specific answers my magazine may be an interest to females older than 19-21 or even younger than this.

45%55%

People who currently read magazines

yes no

Out of the 20 people I asked to take part in my research 9 of them currently read a magazine and 11 of them didn’t. The difference however is very slight. Only 5 of these 9 said that the magazine that they purchase is a music magazine. This supports the idea that there isn’t enough music magazines aimed at females, and that my magazine could fill this gap. (Niche)

General

“Do you feel there should be more music magazines specifically aimed at females in the

market?”

More than half of the people who took part in my questionnaire said yes to this question, which shows me that the purpose and unique selling point of my magazine is and will be successful, as these are the people that my magazine will be aimed at and therefore the ones who need to be interested. 14 people said yes and 6 said no, so its much a majority of the audience that agrees, which is a positive result for me.

I then asked a question that states what my magazine would or will be about to see if my target audience would be interested.

Yes No Maybe

6 4 10

Overall the majority said maybe and yes, and very little said no, which again with the previous question gives my idea for this sort of music magazine a sense of positivity.

Everyday Majority of the week

Once a week Only if its on the radio

Never0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

How frequent they listen to music

A music magazine would be ideal for women as nearly all of them listen to music everyday or nearly everyday, and no one said that they never listen to music, which shows there interest in music.

MUSIC

Dance

Classical

Rock/Indie

R &B

Pop

Whatever is in the charts

Other

Preferred genre of music

From this I can see what sort of bands and artists to involve in my magazine, by narrowing it down to what sort of music they sing, so that my audience's most preferred genre of music is featured in the magazine most. That way they're more likely to purchase it.

The 2 most common favoured types of music are dance and what ever is in the charts, which means the latest and newest songs, which is a good feature to have in a magazine anyway, as it gives it a modern up to date vibe.

Television

X factor, big brother and Alan Carr are the most popular or most watched programmes out of the list to choose from. For my magazine this is good because my magazine is going to be based on x-factor for a couple of months a year, so aiming it at people who watch the x-factor a lot, could make the magazine popular with my audience. Alan Carr is a chat show for celebrities which shows me that my audience like interviews with celebrities, and Alan Carr is the sort of programme to get exclusive information out of the celebrities which is what my magazine will offer, for celebrities in the music industry. Piers Morgan's life stories and the x-tra factor are the next most popular after these three which again consolidates my query of my audience wanting to know more and get a better insight into celebrities lives, and about the music industry. This was the purpose of asking about television programmes.

x-fact

or

x-tra

factor

I'm a

celeb

rity g

et me o

ut of h

ere

I'm a

celeb

rity g

et me o

ut of h

ere now

Big bro

ther

the only

way is

essex

made i

n chels

ea

keep

ing up w

ith th

e kard

ashian

s

Britian

s got ta

lent

Britian

s got m

ore tal

ent

Alan ca

rr ch

atty m

an

Piers m

organs li

fe sto

ries

0

4

8

12

16documen-

tariesTv serial drama

talent shows/reality

tv

comedy sopas0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14Soaps and talent shows/reality TV are the most popular watched sort of TV programme. My magazine is going to be based on reality and talent so to have such a high number of people watching these sort of programmes is positive as it could reflect in their taste of music, and influence them to buy a magazine based around these genres.

Income

Clothingfood

magazi

nes

lifesty

le pro

ducts

leisu

re acti

vities

02468

1012141618

I asked in my audience research how much each person would be willing to pay for a magazine. This would give me an idea of what sort of magazine to produce e.g. cheap or glossy, and what they would afford, also what to set my magazine price at, to get sales from it. From my results I can see that the majority of my audience would be willing to pay anything between £1-£4 and mostly £2-£4 which suggests to me that my audience wouldn’t like a cheap magazine. In terms of demographics I would be aiming my magazine at ABC1 readers and also C2DE.

Clothingfood

magazi

nes

lifesty

le pro

ducts

leisu

re acti

vities

musicfilm

s0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18How much disposable income do you have a

month?

I asked about disposable income to see how much money people would have extra to spend on magazines, which links well with the next question about what they spend their income on.

The majority of people I asked had £10-£30 disposable income, most of the people I asked were aged 16-18 years old, so it is based on pocket money or part-time job income, so £10-£30 is a reasonable and realistic outcome for most popular answer.

Clothingfoodmagazineslifestyle productsleisure activitiesmusicfilmsthings for the homegifts

AdvertisingI asked about what my target audience spend their disposable income on for many reasons. One; to see if many of them bought magazines already. Two; to find out if what sort of things would be best to advertise in the magazine. And three; to see what sort of psychographics and demographics my audience fell into, from what they buy and what they’re interested in. Food and clothing were evidently the most popular things that they spent their money on, which would give me an idea to put in advertisements for clothing shops and new fashion trends, and maybe even coupons for food.

Leisure activities and lifestyle products are also the nest most popular,. These four stand out more from the rest in how many people chose them. The fact that only one person chose magazines can be bad and good. Bad because it could suggest that my target audience wouldn't be interested in spending their disposable income on magazines. But on the other hand good, because it shows me that there is a gap in the market for a magazine, that needs to be good enough for them to buy, and that there isn’t competition from any other magazine.

Overall my method of research suited what I wanted to find out. I needed numbers and statistics to get data that would reflect my target population, so I used quantitative methods, and questionnaires was the most practically effective. E.g. not time consuming and not costly. However my sample size was only 20 people because of my accessibility to my target audience, so my results are reliable but not as representative as they could be, to get my results to reflect the whole of my target population, being females then I should have used a larger sample.

Another critique is that my results ended up being all from 16-22 year olds, where as I wanted to get them from 16-30 year olds. Only 15% of my results came from 26-30 year olds, which shows me some good data, but not enough for that age range. Also I didn’t get any results from 22-25 year olds, therefore I would need to aim my magazine at 16-22 year olds, even though older women may also be interested in it, and maybe even younger. This is due to accessibility, as I didn't think through my methods of being able to ask the age range I chose.

EVALUATION