Question 3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I know from peer and lecturer feedback (which in turn was my initial target audience and my lecturers are my actual target audience) that my target audience needed to be a little older as my initial age range was too young in that they wouldn’t have been interested in newspapers but in magazines. However I still tried to stick to a young target audience as I wanted my target audience to be a new newspaper audience, someone who didn’t usually look at newspapers as they are too political etc. 

I also had peer and lecturer feedback on the pricing of my newspaper as it needed to be low enough so that people would be able to buy with change when they were going to the shop but not too cheap in that the whole of my newspaper looked cheap and unrealistically priced and so due to audience feedback I was able to find a middle ground.

From doing a pitch in front of my peers and my lecturer I was able to gain feedback on my product whilst in was still in its construction stages. 

From the first person’s audience feedback I found that I could include a price for my newspaper products as it would help draw my target audience with it being a new, cheap but professional newspaper for their local area and about the local people. Another point which inspired me to change my idea completely for my newspaper advert was when my target audience asked that ‘Could your advertisement be that it is the 1st edition’, which made me realise that the best way to target my audience was to present my newspaper to my audience through the newspaper poster as a new newspaper launch.  Another point which was raised to my attention was that I needed to look up what a typical new launch newspaper poster looked like for example I needed to know layout, colour scheme, logos/taglines etc which was why I researched into more depth about new newspapers and how they advertised new products.

From another person’s comments/feedback I found that I needed to look at existing newspapers and find out how I can differentiate my product from existing products so that when I publish my product it wouldn’t be too similar to existing products that my publisher is on. I also needed to think about the colours I was going to use for my newspaper as I didn’t want it to be like any other tabloid/newspaper and so I was debating if I should use my colour scheme (red, black, blue and white), however after looking at other existing newspapers I decided to stick with my colour scheme as no other newspaper used the colours together the way that I had. For my newspaper I also tried to keep to newspaper conventions, however I also tried to filter some magazine conventions as it would help to bring in the younger audience which is my target audience. This feedback also made me think about what type of advertisements I wanted in my newspaper products as it is a local newspaper I should have local companies and so this is what I tried to incorporate into my newspaper articles and advertisements. I also needed to look at existing newspapers so that I could define more conventions and apply them to my newspaper as it would help to make my newspaper look like a newspaper but also subvert some of the conventions so that it stood out against other newspapers on the shelf.

From another audience feedback I found that for my newspaper advert I needed to look at my use of logo, writing tone and style as I wanted people to be intrigued in my advert so that they would buy my product and go online to subscribe and have a look at my online product. I wanted my tone to be humorous as it fits my target audience, however I didn’t want the tone of my newspaper advert to be too humorous as news is meant to be taken seriously. For example from looking at existing advertisements I found that like newspaper like The Sun newspaper that I needed to include topics that my target audience could relate to which was why I used social media and web links on my advertisement as the younger generation are more internet savvy and so I used these links to draw them into my newspaper. For my advertisement I tried to keep to conventions but also make it pleasing on the eye and simple as it would help draw my target audience into my product, instead of another newspaper product.

From the feedback for my website I realised that I needed to keep a house style throughout my product, however for my website I need to change the content slightly and the layout of my content as my younger audience will be more internet savvy and so will probably clicking onto my website and so need to draw them in more with the internet benefits of my product; subscription. However this being said my website will appeal to all age ranges throughout my intended target audience as it will have the same articles and article types and topics. From this feedback I also realised that I needed to add local advertisements to my website as well as advertisements for my newspaper as this is the way to keep all of my products connected and give it a flow. 

I again received feedback for my products and realised that I needed to add social network buttons such as Twitter and Facebook etc, as by doing this it will help to keep my target audience interested and being connected to my product. I also rethought my idea of having a formal tone to my website as for all news needs to be taken seriously as it is aimed at a young audience it needs to have a light tone/manner. However this being said my actual newspaper will be more formal as it will be targeted at my older target audience as stereotypically they 

are the ones who read newspapers.

Another feedback comment was that I needed to have a ‘More specific age range’ and so I decided that for my website it will predominantly directed at a 15-24 year olds and for the newspaper and poster it will mainly be directed to the 25-30 year olds. I also agreed with the feedback which said that I needed to change my colour scheme so that it will attract my target audience and I was thought that I could use shades of blue, so that it didn’t completely resemble existing tabloids/newspapers. 

I was also given feedback on that I should add the temperature to my website as this is what they typically do on existing newspapers and websites and so I implemented this idea into my products as the feature is helpful to my target audience and will help to make my products appeal to them.