Research- Target audience

 

Target audience is a particular group which a media text is aimed at. 

 

-It's composed of various demographics across age, gender, career, and education. 

-Target audience can be broken down into two different types, broad or specific.

-The broad category has an advantage of appealing to a wide audience but due to the general information there can be a lack of substance with low amounts of creativity.

Is It Better to Have A Specific Audience or Broad Audience?

 

When looking at different examples of target audiences, it made me wonder, when creating a media test would it better to appeal to a larger general audience or a specific niche. 

 

Generally, the more people that companies appeal to, the more general design and information are exhibited. 

 

I noticed that companies that produce products for a specific group of people have more creativity exhibited that appeal to those niches. 

After realizing this I wanted to incorporate a more specific group of people within my target audience to make the information and design elements have a clearer goal of appealing to that group. 

 

FOOD MAGAZINE TARGET AUDIENCE

When looking at food magazines the typical demographic ranges to food lovers, culinary students, and chefs and due to cultural expectations of women cooking, in search of improvements of cooking or new recipes, the main consumer tends to be woman. 

 

Magazines don't typically use certain design elements or conventions to market towards women, the reasoning behind these sales is a consequence of the societal expectation of women cooking for the home.

MY AUDIENCE

To define my audience I wanted to appeal to a group of people the conventions of my magazine would lean towards and who would be interested in the contents of my featured articles.

A broad description my target audience would be those who are appreciative of all aspects of food, how its prepared, how its originated, and how it effects the world around us.

-For more specifics regarding age I want the target to lean more towards teenagers to early adults who have an interest within food. 

-Because I myself are apart of that age demographic and I believe the style of writing I exhibit for my feature article would resonate those of those ages.

-I particularly want to target high-school and college age students who are looking to relax and open their mind to what my magazine has to offer.

-I don't want to appeal to certain gender because I believe that the concept of food unifies all groups of people so to have specifics that lean towards factors such as race or gender seems counterintuitive. 

How Would I Appeal to my Audience?

-While I was researching I noticed that it was much easier to access the digital version of magazines rather than physical copies.

-Therefore to appeal to the younger audience of young adults I'd focus on advertising towards the digital versions of my magazines

-Advertising wise there would be a focus on digital marketing through various social media accounts (Instagram and TikTok) where content would be made based on the content of the magazine.

-This is because the percentage of people who use social media typically tend to be the market of Gen z that I plan on targeting.

-Simultaneously, having physical copies placed in grocery stores that sell ingredients, ingredients for recipes featured to make consumers intrigued to make the meals because they are in a place where they have access to the ingredients

-Physical magazines would also be donated to libraries for students to refer towards, this was how I was able to access the physical copies of magazines

Links https://influencing.com/au/story/food-magazine-readership-shows-gender-divide 

https://partnercentric.com/blog/social-media-use-trends-by-generation/