Blog 2 - Target Audience

I have carefully considered the profile of the readership for my dance music publication.

National Readership Survey

My first port of call for information was the National Readership Survey website (www.NRS.co.uk). This organization provides estimates of the number and habits of people buying newspapers and magazines in the UK. They survey over three hundred titles. The information is gathered through interviewing a large sample of the general public aged above 15 years.

Above is a screenshot of a PDF file downloaded from the NRS website. It provides demographics of magazine and newspapers. Unfortunately they do not cover dance music magazines in their portfolio.

Demographic Classification

However I did manage to glean some important pointers about demographics. This is a way of classifying people into social groups. The groupings are as follows:

A High Ranking Professionals; lawyers & doctors
B Middle Ranking Professionals; middle managers in business teachers etc
C1 White Collar (Office workers, junior managers, office clerks, bank clerks, nurses
C2 Skilled manual workers, carpenters, electricians
D Semi and unskilled manual workers; drivers, post sorters, labourers
E People subsisting on state benefits, the unemployed, pensioners

I intend to target my magazine toward the households of the first three social groups as I feel they will have the disposable income to spend on clubbing and the intellect to appreciate the music. This is a sweeping generalization though and therefore has limited value. The study considers class and not earning power.

Psychographic Classification

I turned my attention to classification of people by consumer personality types. This is known as psychographic. I learned that consumers groups may be categorized as follows:

• Main streamers - They go with the flow & don’t want to stand out
• Aspirers - They want to have more money or status and will often buy flashy products to try and send messages out about status
• Succeeders - They have more money to spend than aspirers but won’t need to show it as much
• Individualists - They want to show the world they are different
  Carers - They want to save the world.

Based on the above classification I feel that my target audience will be a combination of aspirers and individualists.

Media Pack Review

A media pack provides information for potential advertisers outlining brief introduction, circulation figures and readership profile together with price list and specification. I searched online for media packs from two established dance music magazines

Mixmag is the world's biggest selling dance music magazine published in the UK. It was launched in 1982 and has build up a certified circulation of 30,817 and a readership of 276,000.

Below is a screenshot of the media pack

(source: http://www.mixmag.net/welcome-mixmag/)

I drilled down into the readership profile to identfy their charateristics

(source: http://www.mixmag.net/reader-profile/)

From this research I have determined that the readership may be catergoized as follows;

• Fashion Conscious
• High Disposable Income
• Majority of readership is male (72%)
• Like gadgets
• Median Age of 26years
• Enjoy Music
• Don't watch TV
• Loyal to Mixmag (don't buy other magazines)
• Opinion leaders - they set trends

I can use the above information to design my magazine to match the requirements of my target audience. This will influence the colour scheme, language, type of photography and mise en scene. (the props included in the images). The mise en scene sets the tone and scene of the magazine. This also gives me a good idea of types of areas to cover in my magazine such as fashion, club reviews, technology, rising stars

DJMAG

Next up I studied the online media pack for DJMAG.

I learned the following facts

1. is the worlds leading dance music magazine. Voted best dance music magazine at WMC for 7 consecutive years.

2. was established in 1991.

3. Is translated into Portuguese,Polish, Ukranian, Lithuanian, Chinese... every month.

4. provides an engaging platform for a youthful audience who are inspired by dance music.

There was also a very useful demographic analysys characterizing the readership

(source: http://www.olddjmag.com/index.php?op=media&mediapack_op=online&online_op=7)

It was interesting to note the simlarities with the Mixmag audience

• Single
• Enjoy Dance Music
• Majority of Male Reasdship
• Ave age - 25

The DJMAG readership differed from Mixmag in one important, 70% were employed with the music industry in one capacity or another. This reprsents a sub genre withthin the dance music marketplace.

Based on the above research the profile of dance music enthusiasts I intend to target is as follows;

• Young and single, in their early twenties.
• No children or dependents
• Living at home or sharing rented accommodation with friends so they have a high amount of disposable income.
• Energetic, free spirited,
• Enjoy socializing going to clubs and music festivals
• Male
  
• Thrive on their independence.
• Fit and fashionable of their look.

To differentiate my magazine from the existing dance music magazines I intend to attract a younger (16 to 20) male population. Dance music is a niche genre as opposed to mainstream music such as pop which has a wider following but less distinct. A big draw for the dance music consumers is clubbing on holiday. This is as good as it gets – hot weather, a focus on fun and massive amount of freedom with like-minded people. I would use the acronym YAKS to describe my target audience – Young Adventurous Keen and Single.