Reader Profile Research

Why do magazines do such research? How does it help the magazine?

Magazines do research into their readers to create an understanding of who readers their magazine (the main consumer). It helps the magazine keep up to date with who/ what are the latest artists/ styles their main consumer is most interested in. They gain an understanding of their readers by issuing surveys which gathers information from each audience type, they gain aspects of everyday life for the consumer and what keeps them most interested in a magazine. It also gives the magazine areas to reach out too, so they can gain a mass audience instead of aiming at one group. Doing this research for magazines helps them push their magazine to the new and latest trends. It also allows them to keep the magazines conventions the same but keep update with consistent readers. 

Research helps the magazine gain aspects into the age, location, gender, and the class of the reader. This elements functionally make the magazine sell, without gaining aspects into the reader/ target audience themselves the magazine would not know what is best to write stories on or what bands/ singers are the latest trend for their reader. These elements help the magazine keep up to date with the changing generation and gain continuous buyers. Magazines such as NME use research and create a reader profile;

This a reader profile from NME in 2010. this states key facts and information about the reader of the magazine. There is a greater significant amount of males (74%) which read the magazine compared to the mere (26%) of females who read NME. The median age of the people who read NME is 23 years of age, this can signify the stories and contents is most fitting for this age group. It also shows along the top of the reader profile what elements NME have in their magazine for example; alcohol, hair products, iPod and fashion this gives aspects of who NME's target audience is.  Almost half of the NME consumers are students (42%) which shows majority of consumers are students around the age 23. This information gives NME aspects to research, consequently researching things a 23 year old student would most enjoy to read. The reader profile survey also looks at aspects of technology. From looking at how influential a readers mobile is, NME can create elements which interact and create opportunities for the magazine by using a mobile phone.  The also look at the music a reader most enjoys, NME being a music magazine this element is a greatly helpful to give information for what bands and singers would mostly appeal to the reader or the mass audience. 

These elements give NME/ all magazines a great insight into their audience and gives them aspects to add to their magazine and what stories will sell the greater amount of magazine and appeal to continual readers. 

Here I have created my own reader profile for my own magazine, my magazine will be based around Indie music aspect. I will aim my magazine at 19 years of age so elements of my magazine will reach this target audience. My magazine will be inexpensive and cheap to buy as the majority of the main consumer will be students. The images along the top of the profile reflect aspects of my audience and what interest them. When creating elements of my magazine my reader profile will be key to understanding my target audience and what type of contents will consequently fit them. I also added contact details for the reader to get in contact.