Research Task Nine : Target Audience Research And Analysis

For my research into audiences for the independent music magazines, I compiled a survey full of questions and sent it out to 27 people who then answered the questions. Questions in the survey spanned from 'what is your gender' to 'what content would you like to see in a music magazine'. The target of the survey was to find out the wants and interests that relate to music and music magazines; it was designed to give me a better idea of what to include in my magazine that would appeal to the audience more. 

Eighteen girls and seven boys answered my survey with the majority aged 16-18 years whereas 6 were aged 19-21 years and 2 were 22-25 years. This shows that the results I have received are from a variety of sources and demographics which gives me unbiased results. 

The highest rated favourite music genre is pop with 11 votes but many answers to 'what is your favourite music genre' had two answers which reflects the later question that of whether they think they have an eclectic music taste; 80% said they did. The most popular artists, according to the survey, was Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Lana Del Ray who are the most popular female artists in mainstream music right now. This shows that mainstream music dominates the music industry and fan's interests so to make a new music magazine, it seems that already famous artists would attract more of an audience on the first edition. 

Furthermore, nearly half of people voted for pop music being the main genre of music for a new music magazine with rock, rap, and indie alternative being the only other answers to get more than one vote. This shows me that I should focus my magazine on pop music to appeal to a greater proportion of people. 

Most of the responses in the survey say that they don't buy music magazines but the reasons for why vary: they use online platforms to find the latest music information, they are too expensive or there is no content in the magazine that interests them. I then followed on by asking how people get there information about music and, as seen below, the answer was overwhelmingly (92.6%) for social media which tells me that having a social media page is highly effective and beneficial for a music magazine. This is because social media platforms are more widely used by younger people and people in the 16-25 year old demographic. 

The answers to the gigs/concerts questions on whether people go to many music events was more equally weighted: 13 answers were yes and the rest were no but mostly because ticket prices are expensive. However, many communicated their want to go to a concert but the only reason they can't is because of the prices. This shows me that there is a gap in the market for affordable concerts to be filled and that my magazine could promote these to bring in readers. This is shown in the pie chart below that shows the proportion of answers for what type of content readers would want to see in a new music magazine; a good proportion of the answers wanted to know about future music events. 

To another question on what special features on a magazine, like CDs, specialised playlists etc, would appeal to the audience the most, the majority of the answers wanted codes to access presale tickets for concerts and possibly discounts off the tickets because they bought the magazine. 

In terms of how much money people would ideally spend on a music magazine, 51.9% voted for between 4 to 6 pounds and 48.1% voted for 2 to 4 pounds so, to be affordable to people in age group (16 to 25), who are usually students or starting in low paying jobs so they don't have as much money, a lower price is the smarter choice than going expensive and trying to maximise revenue.