Question 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

I thought that the only way for me to effectively attract/address my audience was to stick to the audience research that I did as closely as possible. I used my audience research at every stage of production such as when choosing a colour scheme, composing and taking my photographs and when deciding how to compile my magazine. I used a very neutral colour scheme in a subtle attempt to attract both genders of the magazine which would help to change the stereotype of the folk genre being male dominated so that my target audience wasn’t too narrow and my product could be more widely accessible. Language was also a vital aspect to my magazine. As my genre was folk music and my target audience are enthusiasts or musicians, I had to ensure that the language I used was intellectual but not so much that prospective readers may feel intimidated or disinterested by the magazine. I think that I was successful with this goal and made my magazine accessible to teenagers and adults alike. I also believe that the title of a magazine is important as it is generally one of the first things that a prospective reader will see when they are looking for a magazine in a retail outlet. I chose the title ‘folk lore’. I wanted to include the genre of music in the title and also show that the magazine is not too serious by using a pun to interest and amuse possible readers which may persuade them to read/ purchase the magazine. In order to attract more than one type of reader, I tried to include stories in the contents page and grab lines on the front cover about different subjects such as a feature on musical instruments but also a feature on a new musician in the folk scene so as not to alienate the older reader from my magazine and also doing this would make my magazine stand out from other magazines of the same genre. I also attracted my audience by making sure that it would be very appealing to 16-21 year olds by looking at my audience research and following the people that I asked as my target audience and ensured that my colour scheme was appropriate. I also wanted the entire product to show the general laid back nature of the magazine and genre. In all of the pictures that I used, all of the people that featured in them looked happy, content and passionate. Furthermore, I made musical instruments I didn’t want the magazine to be too bright or busy as I thought that it would detract from the nature of the magazine and cause an identity blur as it would appear to be a folk magazine that was presented as a popular music magazine. I used a lot of text in my double page spread as I wanted to make clear that my magazine was for serious folk lovers and I also sometimes think that when a double page spread is full of photo’s, the interview has clearly had a large chunk taken out of it which seems to be an easy way out for some music magazines of other genre’s such as ‘smash hits!’ or ‘kerrang!’. For example, here is my front cover:



















and here is an example of a 'smash hits!' front cover :