Mona Hughes

Market Research – Music Magazines

To conduct market research to inform me about the target audience, style and content of a new music magazine I used a form of primary research; I created a questionaire on the webiste Survey Monkey. This allowed me to distribute it to many people and helped collect all my results, in my questionaire I collected both quantative and qualitative data. This is what I found:

Question 1: What is your age?80% of my respondents were 15 to 24 years old, this large majority may result in my findings being biased, and therefore there may consistently be popular answers if that is what appeals to this age category. 10% of people were 25 to 44, and the final 10% were 45 to 54. These results will allow the rest of the answers to hopefully be varied.

Question 2: What is your gender?

My second question asked respondents of their gender. I found there was a majority of females, at 70%, than males, at 30%. This may result in gender bias answers in response to later questions.

Question 3: What is your preferred

genre of music?

My third question asked people’s preferred genre of music. There was a large variety in my findings, the most popular genre being Indie, with 30%, then both rock and pop had 20% of people and finally 10% of people preferred R ‘n B, Jazz and Other. This shows are large variety in popularity betweenmusic genres, however for my magazine it would be best to go in the direction of indie, pop or rock in order to suit my target audience.

Mona Hughes

Question 4: How do you access music? In order to identify information, question 4 asked how people acessed music, I decided to include both places music and be purchased and streamed. Respondants were also able to choose more than one option. This answer showed that paying subscription in order to stream music is more popular (60% using spotify) than purchasing music on iTunes (40% of people). To stream music for free, YouTube is hugely more popular than Souncloud, which used by 10% of respondants and YouTube being used by 70%. This shows that people prefer to spend less money by streaming online where there is a large variety of music available.

Question 5: Do you read music magazines?

My fifth question enquired whether my respondants read music magazines. The answers gave a majority, 70%, of people not reading with the rest, 30%, that do read music magazines. The following questions give an insights into reasonings behind these answers which can help me understand what can be done to help increase the number of

people who do read music magazines.

Question 6: If yes, which?

By allowing respondants to choose more than one answer shows that those who do read magazines, may read more than one issue. The ones that are read include, NME, Kerrang and Q magazine with other magazines also being popular, therefore supporting the indie and rock genres of music

Mona Hughes

Question 7: If no, why not?

This answer shows that the majority of those who don’t read magazines tend not to because they’re not interested in them; I could instead ensure my magazine includes features, such as a magazine for a different genre or including content that may be of interest to a larger audience. The other 43% of people said they don’t read music magazines because they don’t have time.

Question 8: Do you prefer magazines in print or online?My next question asked people whether they’d prefer magazines in print or to be able to access them online. The answers came at an exactly 50 to 50 split, half prefering each method to read the magazine. This means my magazine can be suitable for both print and online viewing, or even both.

Question 9: What attracts you to buy a magazine?

This question has informed me that 70% of people would buy a magazine due to it’s content therefore I would need to ensure that my magazine has interesting content. 20% of people would purchase a magazine based on free items it comes with. The final 10% responded with other, and specified ‘the artist on the magazine’ as being what would draw them to buy it, therfore suggest both images and content.

Mona Hughes

Question 10: How many gigs/concerts do you go to a year?

This question found that the majority of people (60%) said that that go to 0-2 concerts or gigs a year, this shows me that my magazine would not refer to or advertise huge numbers of concerts or gigs, however will still include some mention as 20% of people go to 3-5 gigs, 10% each going to 6-8 and 14+, per year.

Question 11: How much would you pay for a monthly music magazine?

My final question, ‘how much would you pay for a monthly music magazine?’ I found that half of my respondant would pay £1-2.99 with 40% saying they would be willing to buy it for £3-4.99 and the final 10% would spend £5-6.99 for a monthly magazine. This shows me that my magazine could be successful when

sold at around £3. However this is an example of where my lower age group being the majority of respondants may be the reason as to why the most popular price range is the lowest, as young people, ages 15-24 may not have the money to spend £5 on a magazine every month.

My questionaire has allowed me to find out lots of information that would make my future magazine popular with an audience. It has shown me that my target demographic would be 15-24 year old females interested in Indie, Pop or Rock music, who also enjoy reading magazines such as NME, Kerrang and Q. I need to ensure my magazine has lots of interesting content and an entising front cover which many persuade more customers interested in music magazines.