Initial Research into target audience

In order to gather my initial research into my target audience, I decided to create a survey/ questionnaire using Survey Monkey which I could then send out to the public to gather information about what my demographic like and dislike about the music industry and the already existing magazines surrounding that subject.

I asked the people who took my survey ten questions. The following questions were:

• Are you Male or Female? 
• How old are you?
• Do you enjoy reading magazines? 
• Would you pay £2.50 for a music magazine?
• Where would you buy a magazine from? 
• What would most appeal to you?
• Do you enjoy listening to music? 
• Which genre of music do you mostly listen to? 
• Have you ever attended a music event?
• What device do you use to listen to music? 

I felt as if these were the most important questions to ask when gathering information about my demographic. In the first three questions I cover; the main gender that I can target my magazine towards, finding out the age of my demographic and if the audience like reading magazines. With the help of these questions I can  start to develop the brief outline of my magazine with the gender of the audience, their age and then their opinions on reading magazines. These questions help me ground the most vital information I need to help me create my product later on.

The remaining 7 questions help me when it comes to learning more about my demographic. In these questions I ask my demographic if they would pay a certain amount for a magazine, this would help me further, because I need to know an estimate of their disposable income so I could then, as an editor of this magazine, know what I could and could not advertise for my audience. I also asked them where they would buy a magazine from generally, this helping me with where I could think about distributing my product and where would be the best places to distribute to get to the consumers.

I then went on to ask about their likes, dislikes and hobbies. This ensures that I can advertise and sell the right products through my magazine. This also helped me find the genre of my magazine, because I got a 50/50 answer on the 'Which genre of music do you mostly listen to?' question. The two most popular answers were Pop and Rock, meaning that I could have gone either way with the genre. However, with choosing a 13-18 year old, female demographic I decided to stick to the main generic conventions and create a Pop magazine. I also asked if they had ever attended a music event, again, to help me know what to advertise towards my demographic when I come to creating my final product. I would want to advertise any up coming gigs or concerts that would be happening, for example if a band or artist had just announced a tour, my magazine would be able to advertise that tour to the public.

My final question is one of the most beneficial towards the design of my magazine, because I needed to know how much my audience uses technology. This would be one of the most beneficial pieces of information for me when I come to creating my magazine, because I can add features like a website and an app for the magazine. The use of multi-platform would help with getting the magazine out to the customers or it might be a better option for the people that don't want to commit to a full subscription.


These questions will give me a guideline of how I am going to create my magazine and what I am going to include within it. Underneath are the screenshots I took of the questions I asked the audience on Survey Monkey.