To help me understand the task of producing a Music Magazine and help me figure out my particular target audience I decided to carry out a questionnaire as market research. I included questions which will help me develop my music magazine and also create a suitable Reader Profile for my main target audience. I used opinionated questions as well as qualitative questions where I could see what my target audience wanted and how I could add this to my magazine when I design it. I knew which age group my magazine would be based at so therefore I targeted those people to take my questionnaire who where in that age group which was mainly teenagers. I limited the questions on my questionnaire to Ten as I thought that too many questions would lessen peoples motivation to take my questionnaire seriously and not answer all the questions truthfully.
1. What sort of colours do you prefer on a magazine front cover?
Most of the people that took my questionnaire preferred Bright colours on Magazine covers, while some prefer Cool and Neutral colour tones on Magazine covers. Bright Colours are very attention grabbing and many people prefer to buy magazines which base their colour schemes on bright colours appropriate for their target audience. Bright colours also help the reader find their preferred magazine which obviously also attracts them to it as well. Neutral and Cool colour tones are most likely used for a mature target audience which would attract those with different music taste and also which would feature different content. However, Neutral and Cool tones also help the reader to tell the difference between their magazines as many magazines in various News Agents have Bright coloured magazine covers on them and these different tones would differentiate them from most magazines. Due to this I have decided to keep my colour scheme on my magazine front cover between bright and neutral tones.
2. Do you prefer a lot of writing on your magazine?
A lot of people prefer not to have a lot of writing on their magazine presumably because they do not want it to be like a newspaper as they feature a lot of writing. Whereas the majority of people do not have a preference whether there is a lot of writing in the magazine or not. This may be because they are obviously interested in the content of the magazine which is probably the main reason why they would buy their preferred magazine. Therefore a lot of writing would not bother them as it would be all relevant to them, and so my double spread page would have all the relevant detailed writing on it which relates to the music artist, target audience and also the genre of the magazine.
3. What do you prefer reading or looking at in a magazine?
Most people prefer looking at pictures of celebrities in magazines. Most celebrities are classified as role models and many people aspire to be like them in certain ways, this is probably why they chose to read that magazine. Articles and Interviews also seem to attract people to buy a magazine as they will be able to about their favourite music artist. Therefore choosing an appropriate artist to do an article/interview on them would interest a wide variety of people as they'll get their pictures of their artist and also a suitable pice of writing on them.
4. Would you like your preferred magazine to feature a lot of artists or mainly one?
Most people have stated that they would want a lot of artist to feature in a magazine instead of a one artist. Rolling Stones is known to make special editions of featuring only one artist throughout the magazine. I would use this to probably add more artists that relate to my Magazine as it attracts more people as it is preferred by the majority of people who took this questionnaire.
5. What attracts you to buy a magazine?
Articles and celebrities are the majority of features that attract a reader to buy a magazine according to this question. This goes well together as Articles featuring celebrities can attract even more readers and also persuade them to buy the magazine even more as it would feature their preferred artist along with a suitable article on double spread page.
6. How much are you willing to pay for a music magazine?
Most of the people that took are teenagers and are not yet in full time work so therefore they would not be earning as much as they could, although some do work part time or receive EMA, it is not enough to spend a lot on magazines. The majority of people have stated that they would be willing to pay at least £0.00 to £1.99 on a magazine. This would be a reasonable price to pay for a magazine although most magazines do not come so cheap. In my own experience I have spent at least more that £2.00 on a magazine. Therefore I would keep the pricing of my magazine around the same price, also because the same amount of people are willing to pay this price and some are even willing to pay more than £2.99, so I would keep my pricing to about £2.00 or £2.50.
7. What genre of music do you listen to?
On my questionnaire I thought it was necessary to ask a personal question which related to their background, and therefore asked a general question which relates to the main task of the project; to create a Music Magazine. The majority of people have stated that they listen to Rnb related music which helps me a lot as I want to base my magazine on this sort of genre included with a slight touch of Pop and Hip Hop as they all link together very well. As shown on the pie chart the people i have questioned do listen to these types of music which the exception of people a minority of people who listen to Rock, Indie and the Other specification which was usually specified as Metal.
8. When do you usually buy an issue of an magazine?
Usually people buy an issue of a their preferred magazine every month as they are published on a monthly basis. This question has proved this to be correct while the majority of people buy an issue of their magazine once a year which means they hardly buy magazine, However the second most votes has been given to 'every month' Which shows that nowadays not many people buy hard copies of magazines. Although some people do purchase weekly magazines. Therefore I should try to focus my magazine to be presentable and good enough to be bought at least on a monthly basis.
9. Are you interested by any of the competitions held by the magazines?
Most magazines hold competitions which attract most people, however as shown in this question the majority of people have stated they are not interested by the competitions held by magazine while a some people have stated they are interested by competitions. These people are interested in the competitions if they have anything to do with their favourite artist or anything which relates to them.
10. Would you like anything else to feature in the magazine? If 'Yes' please specify
I thought this was a very significant question to ask to make the questionnaire more personal and about the actual reader. Most people have stated that they wouldn't want anything else which hasn't already been said all throughout the questionnaire to be featured on the magazine. Whereas, a minority of people have stated that they wanted more features in the magazine. The specifications that some people gave were mostly to do with pictures of celebrities such as Justin Bieber, The Jonas Brother, Enrique Iglesias etc, Although some people specified that they would prefer to have more articles on new bands and new artists.
