Survey Results

I decided to carry out a survey to help with my research. I designed a number of questions that related with the design of my magazine and sent it out to a number of teenagers within my age group. The survey was open for a week before I collected the results, as seen below. I can use these results to determine how best to design my magazine and what my target audience should be.

From my survey I can see that my magazine will probably have more female readers than male once it is published. In order to appeal to them, the magazine should be designed in such a way that it draws in as many girls as possible. Feminine colours like pink could be more apparent in the cover and house style, and the magazine itself could feature female artists closer to the target age group or attractive male artists. There needn't be too many of them, as the female-to-male ratio isn't very large, and using too many tactics to attract the female audience would alienate the males.

It is clear that the readers of the magazine would prefer for the magazine to be released once a month. This is better for me as it allows for more time to gather content to be put into it, and to work on editing it. Publishing it too often could end up making the magazine look rushed, and some readers might not have the money to buy every issue, so once a month should be fine.

The clear preferred price of a magazine is between £2-£2.99. I have to make sure that the price range is one that readers agree with. If I make the magazine too expensive, they will decide that they can't afford it or it isn't worth the price and won't buy it. Therefore, the price has to be kept at a suitable level.

The most popular genre amongst those that took the survey is pop music, with rock and R&B following close behind. The results in general give me a good idea of what kind of music would be best for my magazine to focus on. Making a pop magazine would most likely gather the most readers for my magazine, but because it is such a popular genre, there is a good chance that there are several other magazines on the market that already focus on it. The same can go for rock and R&B. I could make my magazine based on one of those anyway, or go for one of the genres that wasn't selected as much and target a niche audience that isn't given as much attention.

Those that answered the survey generally agree that the cover model has a large influence in whether or not they buy a magazine, to the point that a lot of them won't even look at the puffs or overlook the genre of it. This means that I have to be very careful in choosing who should be featured on the front page of the magazine. The right person could give it huge boost in sales, whilst the wrong one could do the opposite. The results also tell me that there isn't much need for me to add a cover mount to the magazine and that not much attention will be given to the puffs as long as I do this.

Using the results from this question and question five, I know that the best way to attract potential readers is to use a famous artist as the cover model. Over three quarters of people would prefer that to an up and coming artist that isn't as known.

The results of this question tell me what kind of article would be best to feature on the front cover. People wanting interviews also tells me that readers would want to learn more about an artist. I could make the feature article one about the artist featured on the front page in order to attract more readers.

The articles in my magazine should focus on a mix of both an artist or group's music and life. Nobody is interested in hearing only about their life. I know from this that the focus should probably be more on the music than the personal life of those that created them.

Though people want to see celebrities on the front cover of the magazine, they also want to learn about up and coming artists too. There could be smaller articles in the magazine covering tracks or albums by artists that are lesser known, or new to the music industry. This way, there will be a balance between well-known artists and newer ones. Having an article for never artists also gives readers a reason to keep buying new editions of the magazine, as it will continue to introduce them to new music.