How did you attract/address you audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?

When I made my magazine, I had thought about the way I would communicate with the audience. This would be done by using semiotics. I attracted the audience by using magazine codes and conventions. These are techniques used to engage the audience and ‘hook’ them. I used things such as mastheads, photos, puff and plugs and straplines. 

My magazine is aimed at people in the age range of 16-25. The audience would obviously have a taste in the type of music my magazine is about. So I had to communicate with them in a way they would understand. For example, in the front cover of the magazine, I have put “Blunt’s new album”. I didn’t include the full name of the artist, because I know that the audience is familiar with the person and so they would know what I am talking about.  On my double page spread, part of the interview talks about skateboarding, which is a familiar hobby amongst people who listen to the genre of music.  

Question 1- Who would be the audience for your media product?

In order to have an idea of what the target audience for my magazine would be, I had to create an imaginary entity. This is what an ideal reader for the magazine would be. After I created my first draft of the front cover, I created a questionnaire so that people in my class could look at my front cover and determine the lifestyle of the target audience.  My questions were http://miguel-pilgrim.blogspot.com/2010/11/audiences-response-to-imaginery-entity.html

I chose 3 people from my class to look at my front cover and answer the questions according to what they see. According the answers I can then make some changes to my magazine front cover, and change they way the front cover is decoded by the reader.  On of my questions was what percentage of the audience would be male/female. The answers were slightly different, however, they were pretty close to being the same. My magazine was to be aimed at 60% male and 40& female. So from looking at my answers I can tell that the audience has decoded the magazine the way Intended them to.

The next question was what the ideal reader’s favourite music genre was. The answers to this question were slightly varied, some people said Drum and Bass, which is defiantly not what I was looking for. The person clearly decoded the magazine in the wrong way. However, other people answered acoustic or Rock/indie. These were the preferred answers. So from these answers I knew that most of the readers had decoded the magazine front cover the way I encoded it.

In the question about favourite and/ artist, most people answered Brandon Flowers. My magazine is to be aimed at people interested in Solo Artists, such as Brandon Flowers. So I know that from the answers I can tell that the audience can decode the magazine the way I encoded it.

One of my questions however, got completely different and surprising results. The question about what the favourite interests of the reader are. Only one person decoded music as one of the interests. Other people answered Tennis, swimming and rugby, which aren’t really relevant to the magazine or the imaginary entity. Although the ideal reader may be interested in more than one activity, the main one I expected was to be music. these answers made me think about my magazine and how the audience decoded it. I had to change it a bit so that the audience decoded it the way I intended them to.

http://miguel-pilgrim.blogspot.com/2010/10/music-magazine-rate-card.html <-- Rate Card

Music Magazine Contents Page

Music Magazine Front Cover

Updated Front Cover

Double Page Spread

Audience's response to imaginery entity questions

1.       Social class of Target audience

2.       Age range of target audience

3.       Gender of target audience

4.       What is their favourite genre of music

5.       What is their favourite style of clothing

6.       What is their favourite band/ artist

7.       What is their favourite tv shows

8.       Favourite sport/activity

9.       What is their favourite clothing shop

10.   Roughly how much do they earn a month

11.   Where do they go on holiday

 This is my imaginary entity answers compared to the answers of real audience who have looked at my front cover. Some of my answers matched the answers of the real audience. For example, I decided that my magazine was aimed at 16-24 year olds, and every person answered 16-24.  This means that audience understood my encoding. My magazine was aimed at middle class people, and the audience also understood that it was aimed at the middles class.

My magazine was aimed at mostly men, 65%, but also aimed at women 35%. The answers from the audience were varied, but generally the same. My magazine is a rock/indie solo artists magazine.  However, some answers from the audience were varied, such as Drum and bass. In the preferred style of clothing question,  most answered indie, which was what my magazine is aimed at.