1. The first question in my survey asks participants for their age group. By asking this first I was
able to easily go through and remove these results and they are unnecessary for my results.
Although this will change my results and reduce the number of participants who have
answered, by removing these participants I will have much more reliable results. Because I put
this survey link on my facebook a few older participants, whose views are not required for my
analysis, so asking this question at the very beginning was very useful. I chose to delete the
participants in the ‘31+’ category because these are the least useful participants for this
particular survey of mine. Had I have also had responses in the age categories ‘0-13’ and ‘26-
30’, I would have removed these responses from my age range too. I have decided to keep the
responses in the age range ’22-25’ because I have decided if I could try and target a wider
audience then my magazine would have a higher readership and therefore would be more
popular. Also people in the age range ’22-25’ will probably be more financially stable than
people in the ’14-18’ and possibly even ’19-21’ age range, therefore would be more likely to
buy my music magazine more often or on a more regular basis. By removing the data that
would not help with my analysis, I went from have 36 results to just 28.

2. By asking whether participants were male or female (or by ticking the “I do not wish to answer”
option) I am able to analyse what the different genders prefer in a magazine. This question was
not necessary and I think I could have used this question more effectively, however I think it will
help when I am designing my magazine to show how I can target both genders, which will
effectively cover a wider readership.

3. From this question I am able to see what people’s priorities are when it comes to buying
magazines. This will be useful because I can possibly combine types of magazines such as
gossip with my music magazine to interest a wider range of readers. The majority of people
read gossip, real life and fashion magazines therefore these would be good subjects to cover
in my music magazine. By having an ‘other’ category I was able to see if anyone read any
types of magazine that I hadn’t listed in my possible responses. By learning from this
question that only 4% of the survey participants read music, I have learnt that to increase
my magazine sales and readership I would need to include a cover a variety of topics whilst
linking them to music.

4. By asking this question I have been able to work out whether I
would want to make my magazine weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
Although this won’t make a huge difference to the design on my
magazine, when I put a date on the front cover I will know
whether I want to put an issue number, a date or a month.
Because the majority of people who took my survey buy
magazines very rarely or less than once a month I have decided I
will make my magazine monthly, including a month of production
on the front cover.

5. By asking participants of my
survey what they are most
interested in when deciding
which magazine to buy I am
able to put these things on
my front cover and make
them stand out the most.
Participants of my survey
look at the feature article
and the cover lines when
deciding which magazine to
buy. They are least bothered
by what the magazine is
called, therefore when I
decide the magazine title I shouldn’t worry too much about it. Because most of the participants
look at the feature article I need to concentrate on making this stand out on the front cover, but
also make sure it is a feature article which interests my readers and is up to date. By including a
majority of interesting cover lines and promoting the best of what my magazine has to offer I am
also more likely to increase the number of people who read it. I will research the cover price of
other music magazines the participants of my survey read and base the cover price of mine on
the prices of these whilst also considering how much people spend on magazines in general in a
month.

6. To also find out what I should put as the cover price for my magazine I asked participants
of my survey “How much roughly do you spend on magazines each month?” For this
question I decided to let participants type how much, instead of stipulating tick box
answers. From this question I collected the following results; 1 participant spends 50p a
month on magazines,2 spend £1.50,4 spend £2, 5 spend £3, 2 spend £4, 6 spend £5, 3
spend £6, 3 spend £10, 2 don’t buy magazines and 1 participant uses their club card
points to purchase a magazine subscription. This shows that the majority of people
spend between £3 and £5 on magazines a month. This will help me base the cover price
of my magazine on how much people spend as my magazine will be a monthly issue. I
also need to take into consideration that whilst some people would happily spend £5 on
one magazine, others may wish to buy a few magazines with £5 and my cover price will
reflect this.

7. To see if there was a music magazine I could research for information on what is most popular
with my target audience of 14-18 I asked participants “If you normally buy a music
magazine, which one do you buy and why?” This question has obviously caused some
confusion with my participants as many answered with magazines they buy and not MUSIC
magazines which they buy, however it is interesting to see why people buy particular
magazines, for example someone said they buy shout because it has “fashion, gossip, freebies
and is a good price”. An answer like this, although not relevant to this particular question, will
help me design my magazine because it shows people like a variety of topics covered in a
magazine and all for a good price. Because of participants not reading or understanding the
question properly I unfortunately had to remove 3 answers from this question. From the 26
answers I was left with, 18 people don’t buy music magazines, 1 person reads FHM because
the content varies, 1 person reads Q because it includes a lot of content, 1 person reads Linkin
Park because it covers the music they like, 1 person reads Vibe and the most popular music
magazine amongst my participants is Kerrang! From this question I am able to see that
Kerrang would be a good research tool before I start to design my music magazine to see the
variety of content it offers, the design and also the cover price.

8. I asked participants of my music survey which type of
music interests those most to see what type of music I
should base my magazine around. Obviously, the more
people interested in a genre of music, the more people
that are likely to buy my magazine so they can follow
their favourite music genre. From this question I can see
that R&B is the most popular genre of music, closely
followed by chart music and pop. Out of these genres I
am most interested in either chart music or pop,
therefore so I can get involved with my music magazine
and enjoy creating it, I am going to base my music
magazine on chart music. This will also be a good genre
to base my music magazine on because I can easily
research on the internet what is in the charts at the
moment, meaning my magazine will be up to date and
interesting with the latest music fashions. Because I
couldn’t list all the genre’s of music, I also left an ‘other’
category on this question where participants could type into a comment box other types of
music that interests them. By doing this I got minority responses for other types of music such
as Christian music, rock-pop, indie, acoustic, electro, drum and bass, grime, psychobilly and club.
Because these are all minority answers I will not base my music magazine on these; however it
does show just how many genres of music are available for people to listen to.

9. By asking participants of my survey about their
leisure activities I am able to assess the time
they have for reading music magazines. This is
also a very useful question to ask because it
means I can maybe link some of the leisure
activities with my music magazine.
Unsurprisingly one of the top leisure activities
of my target audience for my music magazine is
social networking. From knowing this is the top
leisure activity I could link this into my music
magazine by, for example putting facebook
page or twitter page addresses for artists who
are in the charts into my magazine so that my
magazine readers can easily follow those artists or bands
they are interested in. Another is reading which is good
because it shows that I include a fair amount of text in
my magazine because my target audience enjoy reading.
My target audience also claim ‘working’ as one of their top leisure activities. This is interesting
because it enables me to understand my target audience are trying to earn money and so this
could link to possible competitions or freebies which could earn or save them money for
example completing music related surveys or winning tickets to gigs they like. It also shows that
they probably don’t have much leisure time; therefore a music magazine could be their only
leisure time so I must make it interesting and about things they enjoy reading about. By learning
the majority of people who I surveyed are into social networking or being on the computer, I
could also list websites or advertise an e-subscription service in my music magazine.

10. I asked my participants the above question because I wanted to assess their VALS-
Values, Aspirations and Lifestyles. The majority of my participants want to have a family, get a
well paid job and have a happy relationship. This shows my participants have high aspirations in
life and so I think it would be good to possibly include information about chart musicians who
had high aspirations at the age of my target audience (14-18). It is also necessary for me to
make sure I am targeting the right audience and have a clear view of what their VAL’s are so I
can correctly target potential buyers.