2. What is a readers profile?
When searching the definition of a reader profile, I noticed that there are several alternative
purposes and aims of them however I have narrowed down the two that I think are most relevant
to my creation. These suggest a readers profile is:
- A demographic analysis of company users developed by a company for advertisers who want to
know if they will be a good fit for that company.
- A profile developed by a content creator with the goal of determining who content is being
produced for so that it can be tailored for the audience
- In both cases, the reader profile should provide information about my audience which can be
used to make my products more relevant to their interests. As a free regional magazine,
advertisements are important for me to make money from my magazine. I also want the best
overview perspective of my audience so that I can create all my products in light of them.
Having all of this information in one place will really help with my construction process.
3. NME
I couldn't’t find any sort of reader profiles for any of my competitors or
any regional magazines in general which I think could be down to them
not being very large companies. I did find some reader profiles for
bigger name brands such as NME and then I can adapt the information
to fit my genre with statistics etc.
A key purpose of the profiles is to fully show who their magazine is
aimed at by showing the audience through their lifestyle and hobby
choices. All of the stats are usually collected from surveys which make
hem pretty accurate. From this particular reader profile I can see the
average NME reader is a 23 year old fast moving music lover who lives at
the peak of media development and culture. 66 of readers are male with
34% of them still in some sort of education. 61% of their readers fall into
the social class A,B, C1 suggesting that it is quite an upmarket magazine.
They quite enjoy music and enjoy watching movies a home and at the
cinema with friends.
The design of the profile follows the magazines colour scheme which
therefore shows continuity throughout and means the brand can be
easily recognised by the readers and advertisers. It is interesting that they
have added images to shows the features of what their audience are into
as well as stating it below. The quote “NME is damn honest” suggests the
audience are quite mature and use mature language.
The other conventions of the profile include headings, contact details for
advertising purposes, web addresses and publishing logo which makes it
specific for the one brand.
4. Q MAGAZINE
Another popular magazine brand that produce reader profiles
are Q Magazine. Q is published every month like most big
branded magazines and is national again. Emap Media
Company published Q magazine and made sure the
photography and production of the magazine was high quality
which many people had rarely seen with other magazines.
From their reader profile I can see that the magazine appeals
to 68.3% of men even though the content of the magazine
features artists/bands and content that appeal to a wider
demographic than most. The majority of readers are around
15-34 and the reader interest and appeal starts to slowly
decrease the older the reader gets.
I quite like the layout and design of the reader profile but I feel
like it doesn't’t give much information on the interests or
hobbies of its readers and there are very limited images unless
it is promoting a statistics or fact. This is more focused towards
their own personal use whereas NME was focused towards
advertising companies and readers mainly.
5. KERRANG!
Kerrang!’s reader profile is a lot more simple
but still includes images and text and has a
good use of colour scheme. It includes more
basic information about the magazine such as
the price, release frequency and coverage genre
which I quite like. It also includes editorial
information which describes the aims of the
music company and why you should choose
them. It also has information about the readers
lifestyles and hobbies the same as NME. The
information they include consists of the median
age, the age range, gender and hobbies.
However I does still only include 3 images
which are of the magazine itself.
6. Features I will look to include;
◦ After doing my research into various existing national reader profiles, I have decided I will
include the following features in my own;
◦ A collage or selection of images targeting my target audience.
◦ Magazine price
◦ Statistics with percentages
◦ Lifestyle and hobby facts about my audience
◦ Keep it simple and straight to the point
◦ A good information to picture ratio
◦ Use data from my surveys
