A reader profile relates to
pieces of information that an institution gather together e.g. age, gender and
disposable income. This helps to determine articles that are in the magazine
and how much it will cost to purchase.
Why is it important to have a
reader profile?
It is important to have a reader
profile because it allows the company to understand the needs of their readers
and what they enjoy to look at and read in the magazine. This allows a company
to also understand how readers feel about specific aspects of their magazine
and whether anything could be better. It also informs the company of the kind
of influence they have on their readers in their day to day lives. Along with
letting the institution know what issues have sold the most and how much it
costs to produce the magazine, which is important to know as if it costs more
to produce the magazine then issues are being sold then the institution can
change that.
What does it tell you about your
audience?
Doing a reader profile on the
audience is very telling to an institution. This is because it tells the
institution things like the age, gender, disposable income, interests and artists
they are in to. These are all very important for a magazine company to know
because it builds the foundation of the magazines that they produce.
How does it allow you to make
choices in terms of content and advertising?
It helps to make these kind of
decisions because doing the reader profile tells the company what their readers
are interested in and what they can afford. This helps in terms of content
because then content that the majority of their audience will be featured
continuously in the magazine. In terms of advertising the company will know
what their audience can afford and the type of things they buy in terms of
music, based on this information they will place adverts that the audience will
respond to and purchase things featured on the adverts.
How do they allow you to decide
on a price point?
The reader profile helps with
this because when the magazine company knows who their audience is and what
social class they are in they can determine how much to charge for their
magazine. For example, if the social class is low then the magazine won’t be
too expensive to purchase where as if the social class is higher up then more
can be charged. This also all depends on what genre of music the magazine
features.
How looking at existing reader
profiles will help you when creating your product?
Doing this will help me with my
reader profile because I will have done research into current magazines on the
market; who their audience is? What their social class is? And What interests
them? Amongst other important information. This will all help me because when I
look at reader profiles from magazines that are in the genre I am interested in
doing I can use the information to conduct my own reader profile which will
help when creating the pages in the magazine.
How will it help people who work
for your institution?
Doing the reader will help the people who work
my institution because it means that everyone in the institution is aware of
what the target audience enjoys and will read which will enable them in their
different sections of the institution to come up with the best articles, plugs
and artists to feature in the magazine so that the best possible outcome is
achieved.
How will it help you decide how
you want to distribute your product?
This will help to decide on the
distribution of the product because social class and disposable income for the
average reader also whether more copies are bought in store or online. This
means that if the product is actually distributed in stores how much it will
cost and whether or not you can purchase it online as that saves the institution
money on printing and it is cheaper to purchase on the internet for readers.
