Research and Planning: Magazine Questionnaire

I devised and conducted a magazine questionnaire to hand out to people of a variety of ages and of both genders in order to establish my target audience. In doing this I gained an understanding of which aspects of magazines that people liked and which aspects they thought could be improved upon. Therefore, I could address these issues and make resulting improvements within my music magazine, thus creating a unique selling point and attracting my target audience.

Below is the questionnaire that I created.

 I then printed off 15 copies of this magazine and went about distributing it.


Shown below is an example of feedback from one of my questionnaires:

After all of my magazine questionnaires had been completed, I took particular interest in those that were completed by people within the age range of my desired target audience of 15-25 years old. I studied their responses to see what aspects they liked about their favourite magazines and what improvements they thought could be made.

Magazine Preference data

Out of the 15 questionnaires distributed, 5 people read music magazines, 4 read gossip magazines, 1 reads a school magazine, 4 read fashion magazines and 1 read a women's magazine.

Also, it was clear from the results of my questionnaires that the majority of my target audience aren't subscribed to their favourite magazine and usually purchase it on a weekly basis. Therefore, I will ensure that my music magazine is available for individual purchase each week as well as subscription so that it appeals to my target audience. This means that a price will have to appear on the front cover of my magazine.

Music Magazine data

Out of the 5 people that read music magazines, 2 read Kerrang, 1 reads NME, 1 reads Q Magazine and 1 reads X Factor (X Mag). All of whom are male apart from the person that reads X Factor (X Mag) who is female.

When analysing the replies about music magazines it was obvious that rock magazines were most popular. Also, the point was made clear that some females feel as if there isn't a rock music magazine available for them to read as they think that Q, NME, Kerrang etc are aimed more at the male gender (indicated by the result shown above). Therefore, I will produce a rock music magazine for both females and males and so broadening my target audience. I will do this by including articles about both female artists and male artists.