Market Research Analysis

I conducted a survey to find out what people wanted to see in a newspaper, seeing as i believed that the social media and TV news was overtaking newspapers as the main way of communicating news.

Another reason I wanted to conduct a survey was so that I could find out whether people actually take an interest into the news, and if not, what I could do as a newspaper to get people interested in the local news, even if it meant going to a tabloid style paper. I just wanted some feedback.

Question 1

While I cannot now necessarily generalise all my results, I can look at it from the perspective of youths as well as the rest of the population, something that is not usually easy to do. Young people should be a primary target audience for newspapers, and it will be interesting what their views are of the printed press.

Question 2

A slight majority of my 13 participants are female. This is not necessarily as important as knowing the age of the participant, but this may shed more light on the more important answers to follow

Question 3

Question three was not dissimilar to the first and second questions in that I wanted to get an idea as to whose replies i was looking at. One would suspect that, with the majority of my participants being my age, they would all fit into the student category in the NRS scale of social standing.

This confirms my initial feelings that students would be the most common group of people answering my survey. I don't deem this a bad thing, as I could tailor my final conclusions around what students actually want from newspapers. Young people are the generation who will be consuming news more actively in the future, and I feel that newspapers and the media need to adapt and cater for the needs of today's youth, before they alienate us and realise they will not sell in 20+ years time.

Question 4

I wanted to find out how much people actually read newspapers, to combat my stereotype that nobody actually reads the newspaper anymore, and when they do, its city folk commuting on public transport keeping up with world news and the economy. So how often do people read the newspaper?

It seems from these results that most people read the paper whenever they've got that bit of spare time on their hands, and or whenever a news story breaks that they want to know more about; for example the riots in London. This is an eye opener for me, because it shows that more needs to be done to get people reading the newspaper, be this in advertising or making the layout or style more appealing in an everchanging world of technology and instant demand. Basically, more needs to be done to increase the 'Daily' and 'Weekly' figures.

Question 5

As well as finding out how often people read the newspaper, I wanted in particular to know how frequently people read the local newspaper. Local newspaper sales are struggling, and I just wanted clarification of this from my sample.

The results here show that most people will seldom and rarely buy a local newspaper, meaning that it is imperative that there is more of an effort to get people buying into the local news, be it from advertisement or maybe even a rethink as to how local papers are presetnted, making them more appealing to a generation that are not used to sifting through piles of text that is not likely to interest them anyway.

Question 6

Because of the lack of success with the newspaper questions, I needed to know just how people do keep in touch with the news, if they even do. With the rise of the internet, and a lot of people getting their information for free from news websites, will this have a difect effect on the outcome?

Unanimously, people watch TV news more than visiting news websites or purchasing a newspaper. Maybe lessons can be learnt by the layout of, for example BBC news programs and incorporated into a newspaper style to make it more appealing to people. It is surprising to see the low figures in Newspaper actually, compared to TV news, however it can be argued that the TV news is the most easily accessable, as you can consume it in the background, while doing something else eg. eating your tea, and paying the most attention to the news that catches your eye. This is more appealing to people, in particular teenagers, than a lot of reading, and also less time consuming.

Question 7

I wanted to know the reasons why people might not buy a newspaper, because in the past they had been a stylish thing. Are people more busy now? Are newspapers too expensive, especially in the current economic climate - or are people just not interested?

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority said they were not interested in reading the paper. This could, however be that they are not interested in the news inside the paper, rather than the newspaper itself. Some people said that they simply did not have enough time to read the newspaper in their day to day life. This is the market that the 'i' newspaper in particular looks to market at, with smaller, more concise news stories. I can, however rule out that newspapers are too expensive, even today, with a varying choice of papers ranging from 20p to £1 depending on your preference.

Question 8

Having established how often they read newspapers, I needed to know whether the participant was more inclined to purchase a local or national newspaper. Figures show that local newspapers are relatively popular among young people, and it would be interesting to see if this was reflected in my survey.

There is clearly a great interest in local news, and this is very encouraging signs. Perhaps conclusions can be drawn that the national news scene alienates young people.

When all said and done, this can only be good news for local newspapers, in particular in Cornwall, where the survey was based. It shows that people want to be connected with their society and their region, meaning that there is still a good market for local newspapers, however there is room for improvement, moving the other 40% of people back from national news over to the local paper. Maybe local newspapers could incorprate national news headlines into their papers to cater for a wider range of audience.

Question 9

Now I knew whether people preferred national or regional, I wanted to know if people bought tabloid or broadsheet newspapers, to see what most people liked. This could then help me determine what content to add into my own newspaper.

My survey shows that people would rather read about actual proper news like world interest events, than which WAG has had a facelift or a new cat. This leads me to the conclusion that people do not want a tabloid style newspaper, but a broadsheet style.

Question 10

Finally, I wanted confirmation that what happens in people's local communities actually does interest them. This is crucial as to whether they would actually pick up a local newspaper or not in the first place.

It seems that people do like to know what's going on in their community, and that is important, however there are those that are not sure and actually dont care about what is happening around them. I think there is still improvement to be made in this area.

And finally....

In conclusion, it is clear that there is much more to do to draw young people into newspapers, and even being interested in local news. However, there are bright signs in how many people would pick up a local newspaper and these can be used to further develop the local media.

I will be conducting another smaller survey to determine what things people would like to see inside the newspaper itself, as well as what would attract them to pick up a paper.

Thanks for watching

Market

Research

Analysis

In Q2, I asked what sex my participants were. This would be helpful to me because, like in question 1 I could then interpret my results knowing what gender the people giving me feedback were.

First, I wanted to know what age group was reading and answering my survey. It was expected that most of my replies would be from young people, because I put my survey on social networking sites, so the majority of people who answered the questionnaire were my connections and friends.

Source: Surveymonkey.com