Audience research for my music magazine

1. My Audience Research

2. 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.

3. My data
I 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.

4. Questionnaire

5. 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.

6. My results Genera
How old are you?
l
The age of my respondents
22-25 As you can see from the pie chart, most of my audience
0% 26-30
15% research was based on the opinions of 16-18 year olds,
closely followed by 19-21 year olds. There was no
16-18 answers from 22-25 year olds. This tells me that I should
45% aim my magazine now at 16-21 year olds rather than
such a large range to 30 year olds. However 15% of my
19-21 respondents were ages 26-30 so, depending on their
40% specific answers my magazine may be an interest to
females older than 19-21 or even younger than this.
Out of the 20 people I asked to take
People who currently read part in my research 9 of them currently
magazines read a magazine and 11 of them didn’t.
The difference however is very slight.
yes no Only 5 of these 9 said that the
magazine that they purchase is a music
magazine. This supports the idea that
45% there isn’t enough music magazines
55%
aimed at females, and that my
magazine could fill this gap. (Niche)

7. 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.

8. MUSIC
How frequent they listen to music
16
14 A music magazine would be ideal for
12 women as nearly all of them listen to
10
music everyday or nearly everyday, and no
8
one said that they never listen to
6
music, which shows there interest in
music.
4
2
0
Everyday Majority of the Once a week Only if its on Never
Preferred genre of music
week the radio
Dance
Classical
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 Rock/Indie
sing, so that my audience's most preferred genre of music is
featured in the magazine most. That way they're more likely to R &B
purchase it.
Pop
The 2 most common favoured types of music are dance and what ever is Whatever is in the
in the charts, which means the latest and newest songs, which is a good charts
feature to have in a magazine anyway, as it gives it a modern up to date Other
vibe.

9. Soaps and talent shows/reality TV are the most 14
12
popular watched sort of TV programme. My magazine 10
8
is going to be based on reality and talent so to have 6
such a high number of people watching these sort of 4
2
programmes is positive as it could reflect in their taste 0
of music, and influence them to buy a magazine based
around these genres.
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
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.

10. Income 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
18 magazine to produce e.g. cheap or glossy, and
16 what they would afford, also what to set my
14
12
magazine price at, to get sales from it. From my
10 results I can see that the majority of my
8 audience would be willing to pay anything
6
4 between £1-£4 and mostly £2-£4 which suggests
2 to me that my audience wouldn’t like a cheap
0
magazine. In terms of demographics I would be
Clothing food magazines lifestyle leisure
products activities
aiming my magazine at ABC1 readers and also
C2DE.
18
16
I asked about disposable income to see how much 14
money people would have extra to spend on 12
magazines, which links well with the next question 10
about what they spend their income on. 8
6
The majority of people I asked had £10-£30
4
disposable income, most of the people I asked
2
were aged 16-18 years old, so it is based on pocket
money or part-time job income, so £10-£30 is a 0
reasonable and realistic outcome for most popular Clothing food magazines
lifestyle products activitiesmusic
leisure films
answer.

11. Advertising
I 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
Clothing
people chose them. The fact that
food
only one person chose magazines
magazines
can be bad and good. Bad
lifestyle products because it could suggest that my
leisure activities target audience wouldn't be
music interested in spending their
films disposable income on magazines.
things for the home But on the other hand
gifts 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.

12. 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.