Audience ResearchMy survey results via

SurveyMonkey.com

• I received a total of 43 responses on my Audience survey over the

2 days it was open to answer. (Shown in image below)

• All questions were made so the individual had to respond to them,

and I used a variety of different question techniques (e.g.

Dropdown, Multiple choices)

• There was one question which I made it possible to skip, as there

is not a simple, easy answer for it. However, only 6 decided to skip

so there was still a large enough sample of answers to analyze .

On 2nd of February I received a lot more responses as I shared my survey via Email and Twitter on this day.

How I shared it

Twitter

Email (Student)

Q1. How old are you?The majority of people that answered by survey were 20 years old or younger (81.3% or 35/43). This is likely due to that age bracket being more active with technology – particularly Twitter.

This will give me a good idea as to what people that age want from a magazine, if they were to read them. I was glad that 81% of my respondents were 20 or younger as that is the age bracket that I was wanting to make as my target audience for my magazine.

However, it is still good to get opinions from a wider audience, as the 8 other respondents were spread out over 3 other age brackets.

Q2. What is your preferred genre of music?

Other responses:

• House• Noise• Grime• Bhangra• Drum and Bass• Indie Pop• Reggae

I found that the more popular music genre is Indie Rock (25.58%), which is great as that is the genre I have chosen to make a magazine on. This means that the results will be more helpful and relatable, as a lot of Indie fans will be answering the Indie based questions.

However, all of the genres (other than Blues) had at least one person say it was their favourite. This means that I will getting opinions from ‘outside the box’, instead of just Indie Rock fans. Adding to this, there were 7 responses for smaller music genres, which widens the audience even more

Q3. How often do you read Music magazines?

The results of this question were unsurprising, as it is no secret that the popularity of magazines is decreasing as technology advances. A huge 69.77% chose ‘not at all often’ which is slightly vague but is equivalent to never or maybe a couple of occasions a year. However, they may still be some hope as 23.26% answered slightly often, and 3 people answered moderately or very often.

However, the fact that the majority don’t read music magazines often, does not disprove any of my further results as they’re saying what they want from a magazine – which may even encourage them to start reading them (again).

Q4. How many pages would you expect in a Music Magazine?

Choosing how many pages there are going to be in my magazine is a tough decision, as it is vital to attracting the audience (can’t be too short or too long)

My results have helped in the decision process, as there is just a 7% difference between ‘30-60pages’ and ‘60-90’ pages. This is clearly the majority of the vote, so when I decide how many pages to include in my magazine, I will be choosing around the 45-75 area.

Q5. What is the most you would be willing to pay for a Music Magazine?

Like the page number, the price of the magazine is also a vital part of attracting (and possibly putting off) the audience. For example, if it’s cheap it may attract people as it’s easily affordable, or put off them as it suggests it’s a cheaply made magazine that isn’t a good quality read.

This was also a closely contested question, with 1 vote being the deciding factor. ‘£3.01-£4.00’ was the preferred max price that my respondents were willing to pay for a magazine, which is fairly reasonably priced. However, it is still not cheap which means I will have to have good quality articles, plenty of them and around 50-75 pages

Q6. How would you rate your interest towards Indie music?

This was the first question I did that is specific to the Indie Genre. I chose to do half the questions on music magazines in general and half on the Indie genre so I could get specific results that will contribute more to me when producing my Indie music magazine, rather than them all being too general and not relating to my production.

I found that the majority of my respondents ‘Love’ Indie music, which corresponds with my results from Q2 (preferred genre). This again very helpful as it means I’m getting opinions from Indie fans and therefore the opinions on the Indie specific questions will be extremely constructive.

Q7. What word(s) would you associate with the Indie genre?

I previously mentioned that I made it possible to skip this question, as it is not the typical easy, multiple choice answer as it requires more thought. However, I believe that 37 answers and just 6 skips is a good ratio that will provide me with sufficient answers.Results:

• Youth X2• Hipster X5• 40 year old man dressed as 20 year old man

with shades on.• Kasabian and whatnot• Homogenous• Awesome• Casual• Cool X2• Chilled X3• Tunes• Loud X2• Nirvana• Creative X2• Rad

• Rad• Sweaty• Egotistic• Ambitious• Alternative X2• Decent• Recycled• Manchester• Underrated• Easy listening• Relatable• Independent• Live events x2• Retro• Contemporary• Calm• Relaxing• Unique x3• Original x2

• Current• Natural• Passionate• Genuine• Non-Manufactured artists• Side burns• Music• Controversial• The new rock• Emo

Q8. Rank the following features on their importance for a Indie Music Magazine.

The content of a music magazine is undoubtedly the most important feature. Different things appeal to different people, so I suggested a variety of features and how vital they’re to an Indie music magazine, so I will know what to definitely include and if to include multiple different ones (e.g. 5 music reviews)

The most feature that was ranked most important the most was ‘Music Reviews’… and it was by a large margin (51.16% people ranked it number 1). Gossip was ranked the least important the most and was the only feature to not be ranked 1st at all, which was expected as I would associate it with magazines of other genres such as Pop.

‘Future prospects’ and ‘Tour/Gig dates’ were also a popular choice which I will definitely be including in my music magazine.

If I was to do this question again, I would’ve included features that regard TV/Film/Gaming, to see how popular features outside of Music would be. I would predict that Film would be a fairly popular choice.

Q9. Would you rather an Indie music magazine to be Formal or Informal?

Another important factor of any magazine is where the mode of address is formal, or leaning to informal. I was not surprised that my predominantly teenage respondents chose ‘In-Formal’ as the most popular answer. (53.49%) If I was to do this question

again, I would change ‘Not Bothered’ to ‘Mixture of both’ as the previous choice isn’t particularly productive. Though, you could suggest that ‘Not Bothered’ equates to ‘Mixture of both’

Q10. What colour scheme would best suit an Indie Music magazine?

The colour scheme of a music magazine is one of the main factors for a reader when deciding to read/buy the magazine. There was a tie for the most popular colour combination. The first being ‘Black and Red’ which is coincidently similar to that of Q magazine and NME’s colour schemes – which are both associated with the Indie genre (more so NME). The other being ‘Blue and White’ which is the colour scheme for my Sixth Form magazine that I made in my preliminary task, so I like the idea of that colour combination, but have to take into consideration that black and red is a popular choice within the Indie music magazine industry.‘Other’

results:• Orange, Green &

Purple • Red & Yellow• Black * Gold• Pink & Purple

• Brown & Black X2• Yellow/Sepia• Blue, White &

Black• White & Brown• Red, Black &

White