Audience Research

The target audience for my college magazine are going to be students aged 11-19 as these are the ages of students that attend the college so this is who I want to be reading it. The content of my magazine is going to appeal to this age range with stories that they will be interested in reading. The gender of my target audience is going to be open to both sexes as the stories will be for both genders to be interested in without it being biased. I think my target audience would be interested in events that are happening at and around the college, so I will include some stories to do with this as well. Also I think they would like to know changes within the school including the curriculum. Another thing they would like would be photos and information about things that have happened as it may involve them or their friends so it would interest them as something they would like to see. The secondary target audience for my college magazine would be the student’s parents/guardians, so I think they would also be interested in events that are going to happen or have happened as they may involve their son/daughter. I also think this secondary target audience are more likely to be interested in the changing direction of the college as they are interested in what is going to be happening within their child’s education. 

From the results of my survey monkey I found out further information about my target audience which narrows down what stories I should include in my magazine. The further information I found out was that my target audience age range is mainly 17-19 with only a few ranged 14-16 and a few 20-29 and only one 40-49. This extra insight into the age of my audience means I know which age range will mainly be reading my magazine so that I know to cater for their needs further. 

I also found out that more females read the magazine than males but only slightly more which means I should still keep the magazine quite even on the gender content. 

I also found from my survey that not many people actually read the college magazine which means I should change their views on this by making mine more interesting for them, in order to attract more members of the audience. 

Although from my survey monkey I also found that the majority of people think the current college magazine front cover does represent the needs of the target audience which goes against what I said about this magazine front cover. So from these results I will make changes to the current cover to make it better and stick to common conventions further but will try and keep certain aspects that my target audience will like.  

My survey monkey also showed me the types of stories that my audience would be most interested in and the ones that came out as the most popular were Music and Drama. With Sport, Art, Photography and Debating coming up as the second most important. From these results I know which kind of stories would be the most successful with my target audience and would attract their attention to my magazine. 

The results of my survey monkey also showed me that the main reason people would read a college magazine would be for information so this needs to be represented in my magazine as a main ideology for my readers. As I want my target audience to know that they will be able to find any information surrounding the college in this magazine.

Another thing from my survey monkey that will assist with making my magazine front cover and contents page is that my audience said they most liked the style of vogue for my magazine. With Kerrang and NME coming a close second, so from these results I am going to incorporate all three of these styles to create a magazine that appeals to everyone in my target audience.