1. Other aspects that are taken into
consideration include: age range, gender,
social class, income (disposable income),
employment and psycho-graphics.
Magazine producers have to consider a number of factors when deciding on the audience that
they’ll be aiming their magazine towards. They have to think about the genre of the
magazine, whether they choose to target a niche (a specialized market that focus’s on one
particular element of the market, usually aimed at different ethnicities) or go universal
(they choose to target a mass market).
Age Range:
For my magazine, I have chosen to concentrate on my audience from
within the age range of 16-24. My magazine is centred around the
concept of new music, focusing mainly on the indie/rock/experimental
genres, and it is because of these genres that I chose this age group;
I think that from the age of 16 up to the age of 24, people of both
sexes, are more open minded and therefore are able to accept, and
try, a variety of different genres.
Gender:
My magazine will be targeting both sexes as, by doing this, I
think my magazine would appeal to a wider audience, and if my
magazine was really going to be distributed, attracting a
wider audience would result in me receiving a larger profit.
Targeting both males and females could be seen as a challenge,
as stereotypically, the two genders have completely different and separate interests to one
another. For example, men are assumed to be into ‘harder’ music genres, such as rock, as they
are stereotyped as being strong and ‘manly’, whereas women are seen as weaker therefore it is
assumed that they listen to softer music, such as pop. However, as stereotypes are hardly
realistic, I don’t think that me aiming my magazine towards a more generalised audience will
be an issue.
Audience:
2. *Disposable Income: When someone has a
Social Classes & Income:
When looking at social classes there is a lot to take into account; there’s the amount
of income that a household receives, the matter of employment, so, whether or not
someone is working or unemployed and psycho-graphics also links in with the discussion
of social classes.
However, when looking at social classes, magazine producers have to be careful to not
Employment:
People both young and old can
be in employment. This
effects the amount of money
stereotype certain classes. For example, they cannot
presume that a man from an upper class won’t read a
grime magazine just because he’s got a higher status
and, probably, won’t relate to the magazine’s
content.
The reality of it is, that anyone from any background
can be interested in any genre magazine, this fact
makes it harder for magazine producers; they have to
distribute a magazine, of a specific genre, that can
relate to everyone but not, because no magazine is
marketable to all audiences, they have to find a
balance or a middle ground of some sort.
they have and
also the amount
they have to
spend. As you
can probably
work out, being
in employment
links in with the issues of income and
social classes.
significant amount of money left after
TAX, bills etc- is dealt with –people with
a lot of money usually have a lot of
dispoable income.
3. Psycho-graphics:
This term is new to me so the research I carried out on
psycho-graphics helped me to develop an understanding of
what it is and what its about.
Through my research, I found that psycho-graphics is
basically splitting a market into groups, based on the
attitudes and ideals of a potential target audience, these
‘graphics’ vary depending on the type of market being
focused on. With psycho-graphics, a market can be split
into many groups using a number of different and detailed
methods.
Some of the groups…
Succeeders: People who are successful and self confident. They tend not to buy
aspirational products and follow their own ideas of what is a good product
Reformers: These people are creative, caring, selfless and not brand conscious
Aspirers: The people belonging to this group, want to belong to classes higher
than themselves
Mainstreamers: The largest group, usually, conformists who buy "safe", big brand
products
Strivers: The people from within this group are status oriented. They seek money,
approval and social status. They are known to be buyers of "aspirational"
goods
Explorers: These people seek novelty and are known to want to try new things. They are
likely to be early adopters of completely new products,
Constrained:These people are poor and sometimes struggling
4. I plan on aiming my magazine towards 3 of the Psycho-
graphics shown previously. These are…
- Mainstreamers: The largest group, usually, conformists who
buy "safe", big brand products
- Explorers: These people seek novelty and are known to want to
try new things. They are likely to be early
adopters of completely new products
- Constrained: These people are poor and sometimes struggling
[As this is the largest group, I thought it would be the most
sensible psycho-graphic to aim my magazine towards. Also, as
they are known for buying ‘safe’ I thought that this would be
another reason to aim my magazine at mainstreamers.]
[As I mentioned beforehand, I’d like my audience to be open
minded to the range of genres that may feature in my magazine.
After reading through the description of this particular
psycho-graphic, I think I’d be targeting, mainly, the people
from within this group.]
[I plan on making my magazine ‘free’, this way, the people
from within this group are able to read my magazine.]
The decisions I’ve made and expressed here, may or may not stay
the same. During the course of making my magazine I expect the
psycho-graphic groups I’ve chosen to aim my magazine at will
change or I will end up aiming it at additional groups as well
as the ones I’ve chosen. Either way, I expect my decisions to
change an number of times before my magazine is finished.
Other groups:
- Spectators: These people read the
magazines
- Joiners: These people tend to talk
about the magazines, get involved with
them
- Collectors: These people follow the
magazine, the web site and could be
described as the ‘fans’
- Critics: These are the people that get
involved, send in letters telling the
magazine what they think of articles,
gigs and the magazine overall
- Creators: These people create the
‘blog’ version of the magazine as well
as promoting the latest trends as well
as the specific music tribe
- Achievers: These people are ambitious,
well-educated and family orientated.
They tend to go for the sophisticated,
low key marketing approach and only
takes cues from the people they admire
- ‘Authentics’: Creative entrepreneurs,
individual, and community orientated,
these people don’t like marketing
approaches that are too ‘hard sell’
- Heartlanders: Often less educated than
Achievers and Authentics, Heartlanders
support traditional values and are
slower when accepting new things and
change
- Trenders: Unmarried, young and style
conscience. The people in this group are
aspirers in the sense that they want to
be ‘Achievers’. They respect their
opinions and love to use technology
- Self-sufficients: Slightly older than
‘Trenders’ but still in the same income
bracket, the people in this group are
practical and have their own mind.
‘Fancy’ things don’t impress them as
they prefer plain things that have a
sense of comfort