Reader Profile Research

Socio Economic Group Diagram:

What is a Reader Profile?

A reader profile is a demographic analysis of the audience for a media text. Personal information is included such as age, gender, location, income, race, socio economic group and their interests. Creating a reader profile will help companies identify their target audience, they can then choose which features to include based on this information. By including things that the target audience the companies will make their product more appealing and thus making more money. 

Q Reader Profile:

Q is a monthly pop magazine aimed at men aged 25-35. Their aim is let readers have access to the world's biggest music artists and bands. Bauer Consumer Media publishes the magazine, their headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany. It is important that any media company identifies their target audience in order to appeal to their needs and wants. Knowing the target audience will also help when deciding which free gifts/competitions to include in the magazine. Including things that the target audience are interested in will make the product more relatable for them, consequently making more profit for the company. For example, the target audience of Q is males aged 25-35. This therefore means that products, singers and bands aimed at younger women will not be found in this magazine.

Q's target audience features a majority of people from the socio economic groups A, B and C1. This means that the majority of their audience are middle class and will have a disposable income. Q aim to appeal to people with higher, intermediate or junior professional jobs because these are the sort of people to have enough money to buy a monthly magazine based on their hobbies and interests. The median age of Q is 34 which means that more complex vocabulary will be used, this will appeal to the audience who are all interested in music and wish for their passion to be taken seriously.

Q is a pop magazine but unlike others, it's aimed at people who are seriously interested in music. This detail about the readers will prompt Q to include certain features. For example, this piece mentions that their target audience typically collects records and are also interested in rock and indie. Therefore Q may include chances to win signed records. Sub articles based on rock and indie artists may also be included, appealing to readers with a broader music taste. 

Q includes this article on Chris to describe the typical Q reader. It mentions how gigs and festivals are an important part of Chris's life; due to this the magazine will include adverts for major music festivals and also the chance to win tickets. Also mentioned is the fact that Chris loves technology and is up to date with the latest smartphone and tablet. Following this Q may feature competitions to win the latest technology. An interest in technology suggests that the readers spend a lot of time online, Q now offers a digital edition, by subscribing you can get an unlimited access to the magazine on any technological device wherever you are. This will prove useful as a large number of the target audience are in busy, well paid jobs; an amount of travelling may be included with their job therefore an online edition of Q will be well received.