Questionnaire Feedback

Here are the results from a questionnaire I carried out in order to gain information about what my target audience might want from a target audience. I know that my magazines target audience is going to be people aged 15-20, I only asked people in this age gap. Only 20% of the answers are from females, however this doesn't necessarily mean my I shall aim my magazine at females, I could just take it in proportion. In my questionnaire I designed 16 questions which I thought might help me out when making a music magazine later. Below is a print screen of my actual questionnaire that the public filled out, and then under that are graphs of their results.

How often do you buy magazines?

The results above show me that nobody I asked bought a magazine everyday, which maybe shows the actual demand for a magazine nowadays isn't as large as it has been. Also, there are even some people who said that they never buy a magazine, but their feedback is still valued as I want to even attract people who don't read magazines. The most common answer, along with never, was that they buy magazines monthly. This is probably due to the fact most magazines come out monthly. Accompanied by the people who answered weekly, more people buy magazines than people that don't which is good. On the down side, the fact that a lot of people say they only buy magazines monthly, could mean that they are devoted to one monthly magazine and it could be hard to interest them in anything else.

\Which genre of magazine do you buy most?

For this graph we can see that sport magazines are by far the favourite. This could be something to do with the fact that 80% of the people I asked were boys. You can also see that not many people buy particular magazine, which shows people of this age haven't got really specific interests. The most promising thing to take from this graph is that there is a decent market for a music magazine.

Do you every buy music magazines?

These results back up the previous table, as a similar proportion of people buy music magazines to the ones that don't. The people's responses which don't by music magazines is just as valuable as the ones that do, as it an show me how to make people who are not interested in a music magazine, interested.

How much money would you be willing to spend on a music magazine (in pennies)?

In the graph above, we can see that people aren't particularly worried about the cost of a magazine. This is due to the fact that the more popular responses are as the price gets more expensive. Due to this, we can rule out price being an issue with people which do not want to  buy a music magazine. On the other hand, we still have to realise there are some people which are not willing to spend more than one pound on a magazine.

What colours would acttract you to buy a magazine

This question has the most amount of responses, due to the fact I said people could respond with choosing as many answers as they like. In this question, people chose to circle lots of answers, which shows people aren't actually too bothered with colour schemes. People seem to prefer less subtle colours, rather than black or white, and yellow doesn't seem to be liked. I feel that a colour scheme of 3 colours would be good for a magazine, so maybe pink, green, with just one subtle colour such as black or white would be good.

What are your favourite features of a music magazine?

The graph above shows that there were a variety of responses to this question. The least popular answer was letters as no one chose it; maybe this is because not many girls were asked and letters are linked to gossip. People seem to find the rest of the features equally important, with interviews being the most highly chosen response. I need to take this response and realise interviews would be a good thing to include in a magazine.

When do you read magazines?

From the graph above, you can see that the time when someone is most likely to read a magazine is in the evening. In the results to this question, there are 3 people who say they never read a magazine as appose to the 4 earlier, this is probably due to someone responding with when they would read a magazine if they did. The results show that there is a market for reading magazines for every time of the day, but there would be most market for a magazine which was aimed for an evening read.

What would attract you to the cover of a music magazine?

Above are the responses to what attracts people into actually purchasing a music magazine. The most popular answer is a 'hot woman', which is predictable due to 80% of people who took the questionnaire were male, all being teenage. Also, you can see that the girls taking it responded 'hot men', so this shows an audience of this age can be attracted by this. The next most popular answer was a gossip story and then music acts, so these should be included. 'Fashion' wasn't very popular so this isn't something I would be likely to use on a music magazine cover.

How often do you listen to music per day?

In these responses to the question about how much music the listen to in a day, you can see that everyone listens to music for at least two hours. This is good as it shows that music is a popular topic, therefore appropriate for a magazine. The average time people listen to music per day is about 5-6 hours, which is quite a lot so this backs up my previous point.

What type of music do you like?

My penultimate graph, is displaying what music people like. Like the question about people's favourite colours, there are many varied responses. There were lots of possible answers to the question and most people chose to circle a couple of answers. This is due to the fact no one just likes one type of music. The 5 most popular answers should be the main focus for a music magazine, is this is what people are into. These 5 most popular responses were: Indie, Rock, Hip-hop, Rap and Dance. Other options should still be included in a music magazine but just not as much. Classical was not chose once, which reflects the age group I questioned.

What style would you like the magazine to be in?

My final graph is showing you what style people would like a music magazine to be in. The most popular choices were colourful and 'in your face', which shows people want a style which really stands out. These are probably the responses I would have liked least, as I feel these are less classy and stylish. However, some people did opt for answers like classic, black & white and subtle. Overall, the responses say that people want a magazine style which is striking, yet within keeping style.

Responses to the remaining questions

In the questionnaire there were a couple of questions were graphs wouldn't have been appropriate for displaying the results. I shall run you through these questions here.

I asked people 'Who is your music idol?', and got the following responses:

·         Bob Marley

·         Cheryl Cole

·         John Mayer

·         The Wanted

·         Katy Perry

·         Rob Swive

·         Oliver Sykes

·         Stevie Wonder

·         Kanye West

·         JLS

These responses purely just tell me which kind of music acts people are in to, and I can try to include a couple of these in my music magazine.

The final question to conclude my questionnaire results, was 'What could I do to make my music magazine different?'. The most popular answers were ways in which the public could interact with the music magazine. So these ideas are things like all sorts of puzzles, letters and competitions. I should put some of these in my music magazine to make it different to other music magazines.



Preliminary Task Magazine Contents

Here is my contents page, which like my front cover I created on Publisher. This is due to the fact Publisher was the most efficient choice for creating this on, and nice and easy while accurate. My main colours for the contents page remain red and blue, again like the front cover, in order for the magazine to keep consistency. The main stories with pictures are on the left hand side, I have picked the ones which I thought seemed more interesting. On the right hand side are the other pages, which might be less likely to attract someone to the magazine. The fonts are simple to try and carry on with the non complicated style of the magazine. Pictures are of students and items which the Sixth Form student readers will be familiar with, so they know that they are the audience. I think the contents are informative and interesting at the same time, and it is important to get this balance.

Preliminary Magazine Cover

For my preliminary task, I have chosen to call my magazine 'The Gossip Room'. I originally named it the 'The Common Room', however as the audience are Sixth Form students, I thought using the word 'gossip' would be more interesting. This is also the original reason I chose the picture of the common room to be my background, but there are other reasons why this is suitable. It gives the vibe immediately that it is for Sixth Form students, as is the common room. The three colours I have tried to stick to are blue, red and white. Although, I had to use black writing in one part as this was the only colour which was visible on the background. I chose red, white and black as I thought these were good standard colours which work well together. To accompany the title, my main stories in the magazine are ones about gossip, which is why I have ran quite provoking storylines on the cover. For the title, I haven't gone over the top. I didn't want to go for a crazy font and position, because this wouldn't have kept things professional. I feel the font I picked for the title is quite well suited to the youth that the magazine is aimed at.