1. Who would be the audience for your
media product?

2. “I have finally decided that my main target audience for my magazine will be 14-
25 females and males, mostly females. This includes high school, college and
university students and other adults up to the age of 25. Socially, I would like my
magazine to appeal to the ABC demographics due to the high quality of my
magazine as it will be monthly. As this is a country and folk magazine, it is stated
that this genre is more popular with females than males. I have chosen this age
range as it will mostly be based on current artists and upcoming artists rather
than classic artists. Although references to older artists will be mentioned at
times to give my magazine diversity”
- Declared on my blog in November 2012
This slide show will thoroughly explain the full process that eventually lead to
my final declaration of the target audience for my music magazine in
November 2012 (above).
I will deconstruct the reader profile I previously created. Talking about what
made me put certain features into it and explain what type of audience I was
trying to create. I will also talk about the other research I carried out in
relation to my target audience.

3. I chose this target audience for many different reasons. The first one
being the simple fact that I am part of this target audience myself. I
feel this would benefit me in the long run as I could easily identify
how to attract this audience. Plus, I felt that I would enjoy the
process if I was interested into the genre myself. Another reason I
chose this target audience is because I felt there was a lot of
resources on the internet and also people at college who share the
interests of my target audience that could help me in the creation of
my music magazine. The last reason I chose this target audience is
because I felt it was very unique to anything anybody else have
done, not just the target audience but the genre and tone aswell.
The majority people I know either did the Pop, Rock or Indie genre
for their music magazine. I felt that choosing a less mainstream
genre like country and folk would be thinking outside of the box and
it would also help me stand out amongst the other students.

4. Shortly after choosing the target audience for my music
magazine I created this readership profile, which includes all
the statistics and facts on all the readers. Which altogether
allows the creators to see who reads the magazine. This is
useful because it allows the creators of the magazine to
make possible adjustments and changes to future
magazines if they aren’t appealing to their chosen target
audience as they thought.
My reader profile definitely interprets my vision. To stick to
the obvious genre of my magazine I created a small collage
full of things country-associated, this way it represents a key
social group for my target audience, country music fans. Like
I stated earlier, the majority of the readers are female but
there is still a large number of male readers which shows
the magazine’s appeal. The age statistics show that I stuck
to my statement and that majority of the readers are aged
16-30. It also shows I stuck to my other aim of my target
audience for my magazine to still appeal to the older
generation as 25% of the readers are 31 or older.
Furthermore, the “FACT” on this page refers to the specific
side of my target audience and social group. Which is
students in University and people who play musical
instruments. This adds a new dimension to my chosen
target audience, and allows the appeal to cross over into
many age ranges due to specific interests and hobbies.

5. Prefers vinyl to CDs Hipster? Student in
University
Young woman,
21 years old
Plays acoustic guitar Doesn’t have too much money
being a student, but can afford
magazine subscriptions
Interested in makeup and
hair
Song writing is her
hobby Is a fan of Country and folk music
Has her own bohemian style
in fashion
Admires country artists like Taylor Swift,
Ella Mae Bowen, Tim McGraw, etc Isn’t a big fan of TV, but watches
“Nashville”
Doesn’t like chart
music or anything
mainstream

6. As country music magazines are a very
uncommon, especially in the UK where this genre of music
is less regarded. Most of my pre-production research only
really helped me decided that doing a Pop/Rock/Indie
magazine was not for me. I did a heavy amount of
research into Q magazine and it was my main source of
inspiration for my music magazine, especially for the
layout and price. I created a reader profile for it and I also
did a full analysis of my own reader profile (see blog).
After I noticed that Q’s reader statistics stated that more
boys than girls read the magazine. I made the decision to
make my magazine appeal to both boys and girls as I felt
this would make for better sales. I decided to make my
music magazine a country music version of Q but it
appealed to both genders but mostly girls. If you look
closely, you can see that the majority of my choices are
inspired by Q, the price (very similar), the rehearsal
schedule, the age range etc. Right at the beginning of the
college magazine process (my first blog post) I also
researched Vogue magazine, although this didn’t help
much as it was a fashion magazine not a music magazine.

7. The other form of research I did was in the form of focus groups. I filmed two
different ones back in October, the first one being a simple Q&A when I asked
four participants questions about what they like about music magazines. I did
another one which I would call more of a group discussion as I had a much
larger group of people being asked the same questions but this time they
discussed it with each other to get a more responsive and collaborative answer.
I benefited from these focus groups as some of the answers my participants
gave ended up being taken into consideration for the creation of my music
magazine. For example, the price was heavily influenced as it was mentioned
that they wouldn’t mind paying more for a monthly magazine. Also, they were
very persistent on having reviews in magazines which influenced me to put a
review article in my music magazine.
A more detailed
analysis of the
focus groups is
available on my
blog

8. Everything I have mentioned in this powerpoint definitely influenced me reflect on my
target audience in the product itself. These include: The use of a guitar in every single
page, as I hinted in my reader profile, I wanted people who play musical instruments to
be attracted to my magazine. Another one is the price, this was heavily influenced from
the price of Q magazine (£3.50) and what was mentioned in my focus group recording
which was that they don’t mind paying up to £4 for a monthly magazine. As my
magazine is monthly, this fits the criteria completely, so I made my music magazine
£3.75. Another key thing I added after my research was the anti-mainstream feel to my
magazine. The majority of the artists featured are less well known which sticks to my
target audience (especially the example)