Target Audience Research Explained

In order for our promotional package to be as successful and effective as possible it is imperative that my target audience is taken into consideration. One way I can do this is through target audience research. From this, we will be able to generate a more in depth understanding of our target audience regarding their interests, hobbies and more importantly their personality.

Focus groups will be frequent within our coursework as it is important for us to interact with our target audience in order to discover what they find appealing, which could help us to implement this into our promotional package.

Personally, I believe focus groups are very useful in the sense that they are very open and easy to generate conversation, allowing questions to flow of one another. Also, I find that when you first begin to speak to someone they tend to be quite shy, but over time they begin to feel more comfortable and therefore more honest. However, where focus groups contain more than one person, it is also likely that because people are shy, they might not feel comfortable and instead conform to other people's decisions. Therefore not giving us a clear representation of our target audience and what appeals to them. One way we can get over this is by asking a different question to a different person first, mixing it up a little bit.

One thing that might put people of taking part is sometimes they can be quite lengthy. For example, within our research we will more than likely show our audience many different trailers, posters and magazine front covers in order to retrieve as much information as possible, which may take a while, and those taking part may have other commitments.

I would say the most useful part of using a focus group is that it is possible to record it in order to look back over it to revalue and analysis the information you have received. This way I won’t forget it and will have proof of it.

By creating a questionnaire it will make sure that we ask all the questions we need answered, without forgetting, we could happen during a focus group. Additionally to this, we can ask both open and closed questions in order to generate lots of different information about our target audience. Continuing on from this point, as we are handing out 20 copies, we will be able to generate more of an opinion, where as a focus group is only aimed at a small group of people.

Despite this, some people may not want to fill out our questionnaire as they can take a while and can be quite boring. Therefore, some of the answers we may receive will be lazy and vague. Which is why I think we should keep it as short as possible, but still ensure we receive the information we believe to be relevant.

From analysis a questionnaire it is possible to create graphs and charts, giving us clear stats on our target audiences thoughts and opinions in order to make a clear decision on what choices to make regarding our promotional package.

By discovering what our audiences likes we are able to implement this into our work and it will effectively guide us as a group to make certain decisions to help make our work more suited to our target audience.