I conducted this survey to give me feedback from a sample of
the general public on what specific aspects I should include in my music
magazine. Overall I got feedback from 40 people, which is a good sample size. I
already had some initial ideas for my music magazine –i.e. indie music, age
range of target audience. However I needed extra information, like price or
which title, from potential readers to know what would make it a success.
1. My
magazine is unisex but swaying more feminine and so it was helpful to have
72.5% females and 27.5% male.
2.
Thankfully the majority (55%) of people to take
my survey were aged 16-25 which was my initial target audience. This is very
helpful because it means almost all of my feedback will be reliable when
planning.
3.
This question was to get a rough idea of how
much I should charge for my magazine. Most of the people who took the quiz were
young students and this category is typically on a smaller income bracket so it
wasn’t surprising that the majority (65%) went for the lowest price which was
£2.00-£2.99. I felt I couldn’t charge any less than £2.00 as I would need to
cover the cost of printing and writing but no more than £4.99 as it is a new
magazine which hasn’t established itself in the brutal magazine world.
4.
I analysed some popular magazines and found that
they use roughly three to five colours on their front cover. Personally I feel
five can look at bit much and so only gave the audience the four options of
either three or four colours. The most popular colour was Red / White / Black (as
23 people chose it as their favourite) but its average rating was the lowest (1.9
out of 4). I love this colour scheme but might include one more if I feel the cover
needs it to stand out.
5.
Another thing I noticed when analysing the
established magazines was that many included competitions or prizes as a way of
attracting more readers. However I wasn’t sure if it does work so I included
this question to find out. Yes won with 62.5%
of people choosing it. As the difference wasn’t very big I have decided that I will
include one or two but mustn’t overload it as quite a few people still said no.
6.
Personally I love to hear about which of my
favourite artists are playing near me so I wanted to include a gig list in my
magazine. I felt I should confirm it is what my readers wanted too though so I asked
this question. I was correct as 92.5% said yes.
7.
I wasn’t sure if people like to read about
celebrities as I like to read about some but others I really don’t care about. My
results concluded that I should include articles on celebrities as more said
yes (17.95%) than no (10.26%), but the majority said sometimes (71.79%). I think
this reflects my personal opinion that some are generally interesting people
and others are a bit pointless –e.g. reality T.V. stars.
8.
Magazines often feature fashion articles, especially
in advertisement, and I feel fashion is often inspired by the music world. The majority
(66.67%) said it would interest them and so it is clearly something I need to
include.
9.
No one that I asked said they don’t like to be
introduced to new bands. 71.05% said yes and 28.95% said sometimes. This is
another thing I will include.
10.
The last question I asked was one of the most
important because without an iconic name the magazine won’t sell. Ideally the
title should end up being a household name (‘Q’, ‘Rolling Stones’ and ‘Kerrang’
to name a few). Also I wanted my name to have some meaning behind it (for
example, Kerrang is an onomatopoeia as it is the sound of a guitar) and so I came
up with four musical names. The name with the highest average rating was Bassline (2.69) but the one with the
highest votes was Echo (35.9% chose
it as their favourite name) closely followed by White-Label (30%). My favourite is White-Label because I think it
has the best reference to music, it is a vinyl record which is supplied with a
plain white label before general release for promotional purposes.
Conclusion
My results
have been very reliable as I asked such a big group of people in the age bracket
that my target audience is in so it is accurate to what my readers would want. I
now know I should create a magazine priced at around £2.00-£2.99 that should
include some references to winning prizes, and some articles about interesting (or
popular to a teen audience) celebrities.
This
survey has been very helpful and informative as I now have a much better
understanding about what to include and the colour scheme, even though I didn’t ask loads of questions.
