As part of my media coursework I conducted consumer research to find out what people would like to see on my magazine. I did this by handing out a questionnaire; in total I surveyed twenty-eight people. I conducted the survey with students from year eight all the way through to students in the sixth form. I asked five people in year 8, six people in year 9, seven people in year 10, six people in year 11 and finally five people in the sixth form. I did this because I wanted to find out a range of answers from a range of age groups. The questionnaire was kept anonymous so you weren’t asked to give your name. The research found will help me a great deal as I can base my ideas for my magazine on it.
When totaling up all year groups answers it gave me an idea of what people would like to see on my front cover. I gave them a choice of which gender they’d like to see or if they’d prefer to see both being displayed. The most popular answer I got was people would rather see both genders on the front cover instead of just one. A total of thirteen people voted for that, whereas the least favorable answer was for only females to be put onto the front cover that only got seven votes. I think putting both genders on the front cover would be a good idea as most bands actually have both men and women in, it would also appeal to a wider audience and seem unbiased.
An equal amount of people said yes and no when asked if they actually read magazines or not. With fourteen saying yes and fourteen saying no. Those answers were mixed throughout the year group; the most no’s were from the students in year nine. I could use this information, as it may actually be a bad idea to target my magazine at just thirteen to fourteen year olds, as they obviously wouldn’t read it anyway. A lot of sixth formers said no to this question as well, suggesting that sixteen to seventeen year olds aren’t too keen on reading either. To avoid just targeting the magazine at a certain age I could just target it at teenagers and students as a whole.
When it came to which bands the readers wanted to read interviews on, twenty-one people chose current bands. The other seven felt they wanted to read interviews on older bands. As the majority went for current bands then it would be a good idea for me to advertise an interview with a popular current band on my front cover. I could then do my two page spread on the current band and have the interview on there. However since a few people actually voted for older bands then it wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to put an older band on my front cover as a smaller headline and possibly give them a page long interview as well, this way I would be making my magazine more appealing to all audiences.
Advertising is key when it comes to putting it into my magazine as that is a source of income, the companies would pay me to display their product or service in my magazine. The question was though if it would be a good idea to give a whole page to the companies for advertising. That would mean I’d have one less page to publish music articles on but you would receive more money if you gave them a full page instead of a half a page. The feedback I got to whether it would be a good idea or not to give a full page was mixed, the most popular answer was that it would actually be a good idea and they wouldn’t mind giving up a page of reading as they may find the product interesting that is being promoted. Seven people said that it was a bad idea as it disrupts their reading; they feel its bad to put an advertisement in the middle of an article. So what I suggested was that I put the advertisements either at the end of an article or at the back of the magazine. Ten people weren’t actually interested in advertising and it didn’t interest them. Also just over half the people voted for only music based advertisements so that would be the only kind of advertising which went into my magazine, concerts, albums, singles etc. Other industry advertising may appear but they would be smaller advertisements and more at the back of the magazine.
Twenty people said that they didn’t subscribe to magazines meaning that they either don’t read that much or they don’t like to stick to reading just one magazine. Which means my magazine may not get many repeat sales; most readers could actually be new readers.
When given the choice fifteen people out of the twenty-eight said that they’d only pay £2-£3 for my magazine, which means it wouldn’t make much revenue if there weren’t many sales. So you’d need to hope that demand was high so costs were covered just to break even.
Sixteen people said they didn’t bother to enter competitions purely because they felt that they were never going to win. Twelve people on the other hand said they did enter competitions so perhaps one music-based competition may be put into the magazine.
As the front cover is one of the main attractions to the readers I felt I had to ask as many questions about it as possible. I asked how many headlines they’d like to see on the cover, the results were mixed but on average four was the most popular. I felt this was a good number to have as well, since it wouldn’t clutter up the whole cover and you’d be able to have a few pictures on it too as well as descriptions of what the headlines about. The amount of headlines would also be decided by the size of the font too, the average size people wanted was size twenty-four. Meaning that people wanted to see four headlines on the magazine at size twenty-four. I could however size the headlines based on importance, by having the main headline the largest and the rest a smaller size. I should also use a smaller font size on the descriptions of the headlines just to stop any possible confusion.
Almost three quarters of the participants said that they looked at the contents page as they found it useful. Twenty-three people said that contents pages are important. So when it comes to creating mine I must take great care and detail in it to make it a useful magazine contents page. Since it’s an important feature in the magazine I must also make sure that it’s readable, accurate and interesting.
The final question asked was whether or not the audience would like to have the ability to read the magazine online. Nineteen people said yes, I also feel it would be a good idea to let people have the option to read online. Most people nowadays don’t bother buying magazines; they can read it on their laptops, ipads and even Smartphone’s via the Internet. This may attract a wider audience, as the Internet is worldwide, so anyone can read if they’re interested. The magazine couldn’t be free online though, as costs still would need to be covered, so the same price could be set to view it online instead of going to the shops and buying it. Keeping it the same price would be key, as it doesn’t discriminate. The readers have the choice to go buy the magazine or read it on their laptop at the same expense.
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