Thursday, 11 December 2014

Ideal Reader Profile



John is 19 and lives in the UK. He thinks listening to music is more important than thinking. He involves music in his everyday life and it is his biggest interest.

He enjoys live music and video games. He likes to spend time playing musical instruments and occasionally writing song lyrics. John likes the fast life and drives a Renault to fulfil his fast paced music adventures. Foo Fighters are a major impact in John’s life, he relates to the artists on both a mental and emotional level. He likes rock music as it gives him a release from his job.

John works in the entertainment business working with minor music artists, he has expensive tastes yet manages to have less £125 to spare a month after expenses. John likes to shop in the cheaper stores such as Asda so that he leaves himself with money to spend on things he enjoys such as magazines and newspapers. Horror movies give him the thrill he requires, just like heart throbbing concerts.

John likes to keep his expenditures simple with hamburgers being his food of choice. C2DE social grade would be ideal in explaining how John is socially ranked. John has a partner although has no kids.



Social Media and internet technology is majorly impacted in his life, he spends more than 50 hours a week online and loves music apps such as Shazam for his phone. He likes CDs yet still enjoys downloading music to satisfy his constant need to refresh his current playlist. 

Ideal Reader Information

This is my research on my ideal reader. This information is from YouGov profiler  in which they ask others question and create a profile then put all these together to make one average profile for a particular topic. My chosen profiler was under 'Kerrang Magazine'. Basically this is who is most likely to read the magazine etc etc.
Age: 18-24
Gender: Male
Monthly Spare: Less than £125
Typical profession: Entertainment 
Favourite food: Hamburgers
Car/Mode of transport: Renault
TV shows: Supernatural/The walking dead
Favourite Music: Foo Fighters
Sport: Basketball/Boxing
Online: 50+ hours
Favourite activities: Video games/Playing instruments
Where they like to shop: Asda
Favourite Movies: Saw (horror)
Interests: Music/Movies
Social Grade: C2DE

Questionnaire analysis

This is my analysis for the questionnaire previously posted to my blog. For this analysis I decided to keep it simple by only using bar charts. This is because using different formats looks messy and takes a certain professional theme from the analysis. Here I will analyse the results and why I go these results.
Q1.




















This was question 1 of my analysis. It was to determine which gender I was going to target specifically. Knowing this information would help me determine the features and the content of the magazine as I would have to include a variety for both gender. Based upon this graph its hard to try please one gender so I think it may be wise to include a range for both genders. This may be things such as including female artists and male artists and freebies that will suit both genders, such as iTunes vouchers. Considering the majority of my audience I thought was going to be female it was a surprise to see more men taking this survey. Although I shared this questionnaire via social media websites which would open up a wider range of gender ratio. This is better for me when constructing the magazine as it means I can add a bigger range of features to my magazine.


Q2.

This question was to determine the age of people I am basing the content of the magazine upon. I shared the bulk of the survey collectors to my school peers which is why it comes as no surprise that 76.19% is aged between 13 - 18. This means that my content will have to be suitable for a more younger age, for example featuring artists that particularly appeal to a younger audience of both genders. This is important to know when constructing my magazine because it helps to narrow down on the content and features I will include. The reason I chose these particular ages was because each range I featured normally have the same kind of interest and hobbies.



Q3.

This question was very important as it would establish the basis of my magazine. Genre is what determines each music magazine so understanding which genre my target audience was more interested in. The results of this question are a little different because although pop received most votes indie and rock combined received more which to me are very similar genres and considering they are both my favourite I have decided to combine the 2 genres in the magazine. This may seem unfair and may be a bad decision but I am confident that the majority of those taking the survey and choose the 2 genres will be interested. Now that I know which genres I will use I can decide on what kind of artists to feature in the magazine and can get a very rough idea of a basic colour scheme (black).



Q4.
This question was basically to determine whether or not I would have an audience that was interested in buying my magazine. 71.43%  said Yes which is good because now I know I have some sort of audience to target. This is important as I need a market audience to sell my magazine to.





Q5.
Question 5 was to help me decide on the freebies I shall include. It was no surprise that iTunes vouchers received the most votes whereas Stickers received nothing. Of course the reason for this being that the majority of those answering the survey were teenagers. It doesn't take a genius to know that almost all teenagers have an iPhone in their possession. Although the majority of the survey was answered by teenagers it can be appealing to adults two considering about 16% of the worlds population owns an iPhone not just teenagers. Freebies are important in a magazine because they entice sales and now a days people love freebies. iTunes vouchers alone should attract a bigger market for my magazine.



Q6.
The colour scheme of a magazine accommodates the house style of that magazine and also particularly in music magazines the colour scheme connotates hidden messages or meanings from certain magazines. From the survey answer to the left we can see that red was most voted for and black was directly behind in second place. These colours also back up my choice of genre for the magazine, black and red are both dark colours that are mainly associated with rock when it comes to music magazines (Q). I personally like these colours also which is why I will use them in my magazine. White and blue where also highly chosen in comparison to others so I will incorporate these 2 colours into my magazine along with the other 2.




Q7.                                                                                    
Question 7 was among the top 3 most important questions asked in this survey as it gives me an insight as to what my readers actually want to read. There is no point in making a magazine that people arent interested in. For this question I give the option of multiple choice so that people could choose as much as they want. In doing so I can include everything or only one thing, either way it gives the readers what they want. The biggest recipient of votes was ''upcoming tours...'. This means I will have to do extensive research to find all the information and dates for my readers. Things such as this is included in every major music magazine which means I will have similar traits to professional music magazines. Also an optional feature of top 10 music charts was also a high recipient of votes. I am thinking of also adding an editorial to familiarise readers to who I am.





Q8.

Question 8 also was very very important. Knowing what your audience wants featured on the front cover(image) is essential to gaining readers. This is the first thing anyone will see when looking at the magazine or any magazine for that matter which is why it is essential I know what the audience want. It comes as no surprise that both options of famous band or singer were the highest voted. The reason I included such a varied set of choices was so that I could understand what the audience want to a certain extent. Both options that include the word 'Famous' share a total percentage of 47.62% out of 100% that's a major percentage when in comparison with 'Upcoming popular band' that received no votes (0%).





Q9.
Finally I wanted to know what entices people to buy a magazine. Personally I can say it would have to be freebies and the main image. From the results you can see that both these two received equal percentages of 52.38%. That means 11 votes each. As I previously mentioned the main image is important but so are freebies. Getting free stuff, isn't that everyone's goal. Since I asked what freebies my audience would like at this question confirms that freebies entice them to buy a magazine this all works in my favour as I now know what they want.
Overall I think this survey has give me an extra step forward in understanding my target audience and helping me determine what they want in a magazine.

Friday, 5 December 2014

Sharing Questionnaire via Social Media

To gain more and more responses I decided to share my survey on social media websites. This open up a wider range of responses and of course more responses. Along with sharing it via Blogger I also shared my Survey via Twitter and Facebook.


Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Target Audience Research Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire I created to establish what my target audience expect from my magazine and to help me build a rough idea of what mymagazine should look like. I used SurveyMonkey to create this survey and I am going to collect responses from Facebook, Email and of course this post.
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Extensive Research

Here I will post the top 10 songs, top artists and top 5 music magazines. I will discuss which ones are my favourite and why.

This is the top 10 songs in the UK this week. Personally I think some of the artists in this list aren't as  successful as they deserve to be and some are too successful. The reason I think Taylor Swift is so successful especially in this chart is because all girls relate to her in her songs. To me number 8 uptown funk deserves to be in the number 1 spot. Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson. This song is good because it shows Bruno Mars as the laid back Jazz lover he is.


This chart is a mixture of artists seen to be the top artists right now. This is an all star cast full of people with the same profession and the same passion for the music industry yet they are all very individual and unique. They all come from varied backgrounds and genres. My favourite artist here would have to be Ed Sheeran. Simply because he is less materialistic and understands the music industry.

Here are the top 5 rated magazines. It comes as no surprise to me that Rolling Stone is number. Although I did not feature Rolling Stone on my blog I still did my research and they are great. They have really risen in sales, circulation and readership. This is due to their uniqueness and the fact that they aren't too mainstream.