Target research and Focus Group

Target Research Survey Analysis

I created a survey of questions based around music magazines, and asked 14 people between 16-21 to give answers about what they would want from one. In order to make the data accurate, I covered a number of different aspects relating to music magazines. I can then use this when designing my music magazine in order to appeal to the right group of people.

The answers to this question tells me that people listen to a wide variety of genres, with the most popular ones being Rock and Metal, with Metal being substantially more popular. This was not the result I was expecting, as I thought Pop would be the most popular, as that is the most featured genre on TV and radio. I believe this may be due to my focus group not being an even representation of the whole population, but rather a small subset. However, I will still use the result this data has given me to plan my music magazine, which will try to appeal to fans of Metal.

I asked my focus group how often they buy music magazines to gauge how important a decision they make when buying one. My results show that the vast majority of my group bought music magazines less than once a month, so when planning my magazine I need to ensure that it is appealing enough that they will buy it. This result does not surprise me, as the advent of the internet means that most people between 16 and 21 get their information online, instead of in print.

This question was to give me an indication of what combination of style and substance appealed to my group the most. The answers I received tell me that Rolling Stone's combination of music and other areas of pop culture appeal the most to people, which tells me that it may make my magazine more appealing if I put in articles about popular film or TV alongside music. It also tells me that people do already buy music magazines specific to the Metal genre, so my magazine will have competition in the market.

This question was to give me an indication of what sort of content would appeal to my audience the most. The results show that a wide variety of articles would interest my target audience, but the most popular would be album reviews, gig information and interviews. This lines up with what I expected, as this is already what most music magazines create in order to appeal to customers and stay relevant in the digital age.

The last few questions were specifically about house style, and what would appeal to my audience. The first, on the design of the front cover, gave me an even split between messy and organised. This means I will have to make a compromise and not be able to appeal to everyone, however due to the nature of Metal as a genre, I will have already put many people off with the subject matter. Therefore I have decided to make my cover organised, but with exciting fonts and colours. This is because, while Metal carries connotations of chaos and disorder, people like to see things that look organised, and this makes the information easier to process. My target genre being as specific as it is, it is better to make the information easy to read while still being eye-catching, rather than going all-out on making it stand out.

The next question on house style was about colour scheme. I came up with four styles that I felt would look good, but by far the most popular choice was my initial idea of black, yellow, and white. I came up with this by looking at the general styles of other magazines like Q and Metal Hammer, so it does not surprise me that the colour scheme that draws most from other popular magazines was the most popular choice.

The final question was a simple one to do with the style of font. This seems to be mainly down to personal preference, however as Serif was the more popular choice, I will use a Serif font for the masthead and cover lines, then use a Serif Sans font for the actual article text, as I feel that Sans Serif is easier to read when it is at a diminished size compared to Serif.

Focus Group

I asked a small group of my peers this question:

Why would you read read music magazines?

And these were their responses:

• "To know about new bands and when new music is coming out."
• "When concerts are"
• "Exclusive interviews with bands"
• "to find new music I would like"