The Survey Results

To better understand what audience my magazine really is aimed at, we have been given the assignment of making a closed question survey. The questions in this survey is thought out to tell me more about my audience's reading habits, how and why they are into this kind of music and how it affects them. This will be useful in developing my magazine, tough I can see the challenge in translating these answers into different elements regarding my design. 

This survey was done using SurveyMonkey, the weblink was posted on various music sites as Ultimate Guitar and Metalhammer, and shared numerous times trough the social media site Last.fm. I got over 200 answers, but could only use the first 100 due to the free-account restrictions on SurveyMonkey. Anyway, here is my result:

Before I started the survey i suspected that the majority of people listening to metal music where male, but it was still a surprise to see that 96% of the attendants where male. I don't think that as many of 96% of the people who listens to metal music are male, but it may be that it's most males that are interested in going out on the Internet and reading less known forums and websites about this genre, and then find this survey. This is an important question in my survey because it gives a clear indication of who my audience is.

90% of the attendants in this survey could be found within a 12 years age span from 17 to 25. Along with question 1 this gives us a very specific group of society, simply male 17 to 25. Again I will have to consider that this survey was done on the Internet, and young people probably use Internet a lot more then people that are above 26. 

This is an important question to have in this survey because it tells me if there is a market out there for new magazines. Only 14% of the attendants are subscribing. I couldn't find any information of how many percent of the whole population in the UK that are subscribing to magazines, but I suspect that younger people between the age of 17 to 25 for various reasons decides to buy magazines in a store instead of subscribing. If my magazine is going to rely on people buying it in stores, then the approach of my magazine have to be sightly different from a magazine that relied on subscribers. 

So more of the attendants in this survey are reading magazine, but still a considerable amount of the attendants doesn't buy/read any of the magazines listed. This means that magazines still has a potential to engage with their audience and to capture new readers.

 

The most important thing in a music magazine is of course the music, so there is definitely value in asking how readers access music. What I see is that illegally downloading is still popular but that streaming services and buying Cd's aren't far behind. According to this survey, together the legal purchase of music is bigger then the illegal in my audience. I believe that listeners in the metal music genre to a higher degree engage in activities outside the music. A great deal aren't just "listening" to music, they are playing instruments, writing blogs, read magazines, attend concerts and festivals.  Therefore I believe that a lot are more loyal towards their music and will buy and support their favourite acts (legally purchasing music) instead of stealing from them.

This is also useful to look at with advertising in mind. Advertising usually makes up a huge part of the income of the magazine so it's definitely important. I can see that my magazine definitely will have readers that uses streaming services. So for an example services like Spotify and lesser known services like Wimp will benefit from advertising in my magazine.

Another question, too see if magazines got an impact on the music we choose to listen to. It does, 7% of the attendants said that they discover new music trough magazines. Surprisingly the Internet plays a huge part in what we choose to listen too, but again I have to take into reconciliation that this survey was done on the Internet itself. Friends relatives makes up about a fourth of the answers, and it really is an example of how important "word of mouth" is.
Still, discovering music from magazines, music websites/blogs, and trough streaming services and stores (62%) is largely individually discovering of new music. A listener to the metal music genre likes to find his own music, individuality is important!

This is a tricky question, because magazines tend to make a stand every time a new band pops into the more mainstream, public eye or a new wave of music is emerging. Like Kerrang! embraced Nu-metal acts in the late 90's, Rolling Stone dismissed The Beatles in the 60's. Does the opinion of magazines really matter to us? According to the attendants of this survey it doesn't, and it reinforces my previous statement of that individuality is important to my audience/attendants of this survey. Magazines do have an impact though, but what I think is more important is that a magazine should be able to reflect the music taste of it's audience as much as they can. So if Rocksound is going to place dubstep/dance artist Skrillex on it's front cover, then the editors of Rocksound has to be sure that their readers actually likes Skrillex.

The answers on this question came as a surprise as me, as i didn't think it would be as many as 88% of my attendants playing an instrument. Along with question number one, it gives me some very concrete information about my audience. They are almost all between 17 and 25, and almost everyone is playing an instrument. No wonder why there is a lot of advertising in music magazines for instruments. The answers on this question reinforces my statement of that my audience is largely engaging in activities outside just "listening" to the music.

 

The most exiting question in my survey. The magazines itself surely hasn't any big impact on personal believes and choices of my audience, but the music itself has! Only 7% of my attendants answered that the music has no impact at all, so I conclude that the music and things close tied to the music has a lot to say for my audience. They get unhappy if the magazine aren't exact on details, messes with their favourite band or go "mainstream", but a music magazines will maybe get more royal readers, and over times these magazines get a lot of reliability and respect. Kerrang! have been going since 1983 and Metalhammer since 1985, so we talk about really "old" magazines still relevant in the media world!