Audience Research: Preliminary Task

My first question was 'Should the magazine focus on the whole school or mainly sixth form?'. This pie chart shows me the percentage of people who said whole school or sixth form. 60% said that the magazine should focus on the whole school, therefore, my magazine should include news and information about the whole school.

The second question of my questionnaire, 'Should the magazine focus on the whole school or mainly sixth form?' received multiple answers. However, the school colours out of all the colour schemes were the most popular among my audience. If the colour scheme of my questionnaire is the same, or similar to the school's colour scheme then people reading the magazine, my target audience, will have an idea of what the magazine is about and what it's contents may be. As most people answered that the magazine should be focused on the whole school, the school colours will be convenient.

The next question asked my target audience what kind of content they would like to see in the magazine, 'What colour scheme do you think would be appropriate?'. 46%, the majority, answered that the would like to see news of what is going on inside the school. Therefore, this will be the focus of the magazine. However, 23% said that they would like to see events, and the rest would like to see the magazine contain important dates and study tips. I think that i should take into account all of the options, however, news will be my priority.

The next question I asked my audience was 'Should the magazine include the school logo?'. Everyone who participated in the questionnaire said that the magazine should include the school logo, therefore, it is important that the school logo is in the magazine. Preferably, it should be on the cover so that it shows my audience which school the magazine is about.

My next question on the questionnaire was 'On the front of the page, should there be picturs of students and/or teachers?'. This question allowed me to see what my audience want the front cover of the magazine to contain. 70% of the participants said that they would like to see both, students and teachers, on the front cover. This will allow the cover to be more balanced and show that the magazine is for everyone, not just students.

The 6th question of my questionnaire was 'What do you think the font should be for the text'. I made this question as a tick box question so that the person can only choose one. All of the fonts mentioned were fonts that i thought would be ideal. This allows me to chose a font that i like and a font that my audience likes. 40% said that they would like to see Century Gothic as the font, therefore this will be my font. All other fonts were voted 20% each.

The next question, 'What do you think would be an appropriate title for the school magazine?', was an open question so that the target audience of my magazine could suggest their own ideas. There were a couple of ideas for a name, however i think that the most ideal (and the one i liked the most) is 'Tommies Telegraph', as 'Tommies' is more of a slang term for 'St Thomas Aquinas'; therefore it can appeal to a young audience.

Next, i asked my audience if they would like the magazine to include links to the school's social media. 'Should i provide links to the school's social media account?'. 100% of the people asked said yes, therefore, i should make sure to supply link to social media accounts such as twitter. It allows people to find the school and interact on social media.

I also asked the audience 'How often should the magazine be published?'. This tells me how often the audience would like to read the magazine. Also, the more frequently it is published the more the news are up to date. 50% of my audience said that they would like the magazine to be published monthly. I agree with this is as it gives me more time to build up information and make sure that the magazine is done to the best of my ability.

My last question was 'Do you have any other suggestions about the magazine?'. Unfortunately, only otwp people said yes, however, one of them did not give any details or explain their answer. The other person suggested that i should keep the magazine simple. Therefore, 80% said that they do not have suggestions. This could be a disadvantage as i don't know what else my target audience would like to see, which was not mentioned in the questionnaire.