To define our target audience, we will need to use Demographic and Psychographic profiling in order to create an accurate reader profile of who would probably be a viewer of our final finished product. to do this, we will have to use G.R.A.S
G- gender
A- age
R- race
S- Socio- economic status.
In order to accurately determine who our target audience are, we will create a generalized reader profile at the end of this post to show who we believe would be an accurate representation of someone who might listen to indie/pop music.
Demographic Profile.
By splitting up the population into separate groups, it makes it easier to then target specific audiences. Therefore the following gruops will be what we split our audience market up into to decide who we will be aiming our product at:
- Age
- Gender
- Sexuality
- Class
- Geographical Area
- Religion
- Economics
Below is the breakdown for the G.R.A.S which is the most commonly used method of identifying a target audience
Gender- From our previous research, we have come to the conclusion that the most likely gender to listen to indie pop musicis likely to be female. We have come to this conclusion simply because of the nature of Indie pop music being for the large part mostly expressve about feelings and emotions, we belive this to be qute a feminine quality, and would expect that females would relate to this more so than males. Altough Indie pop music has also a large male fan base.
Age- the average age of a listener for Indie pop music will probably be teens to young adult. This is more likely to be as the artists themselves for this genre are around a similar age, therefore, the fans will relate better to someone theire own age. Also towards someone who sings about personal emotions and thoughts that the fans of the genre will also find common groud with and will then likely to be a supporter of the artists work.
Although the most likely age group to listen to this genre of music will probably be 16-25 year olds, this does not rule out older fans more around the ages of 30-mid 40's as i personaly know people this age who do enjoy music from artists such as The Scrip, Paloma Faith and Ed Sheeran.
Race- The most likely race to listen to Indie pop music are White people. This again does not rule out any other race, it is simply white people who according statistics buy and listen to most of the Indie pop music. This could be explained through racial and ethnic backgrounds and the different cultures. for example, people from a Bangladeshi background are more likely to listen to Bolly-wood styles of music than conventional western pop music.
Socio-economic status- Typically, this is broken down into High, Middle and Low Socioeconomic status. For our target audience, it is likely that our fans will fit into the bottom half of the middle and the lower end of the socioeconomic status. This will probably be down to the fact that the artists themselves are from the lower end of the scale, and as previously discussed, the fans relate well to the artists who are like them in many aspects, this is a key aspect as to why they are likely to be a fan of the indie pop music because the music is 'Real' and relates to everyday problems, thoughts and feelings.
Pshycographic profiling
To further specify or target audience, i will look at psychographic profiling. this is another way of further dividing up the population in order to more specifically target a group of people. Each person will fit onto one of the following economic groups:
- A (upper class) - higher managerial, administrative or proffessional eg:- surgeon or company director.
- B ( middle class) - Intermediate managerial, administrative or proffessional eg:- teachers, solicitors.
- C1 (lower middle class) - Skilled non manual eg:- sales assistant, shop floor supervisors
- C2 (skilled working class) - Skilled manual work eg:- pluber, electrician
- D (lower working class) - Semi skilled eg:- assembly line workers, cleaners
- E (subsidence)- Unskilled, pensioners and unemployed
Our target audience, taking into consideration the most likely age of them (16-25 years old) will probably still in education or job seeking. therefore this means they will likely to be falling into categories C2, D and E.
Through Young and Rubicams Cross Cultural Consumer Characteristics we can further split the audience up into 4 groups based on their aspirations.
Mainstreamers: These people are likely to 'follow the crowd'. They take comfort from buying form well known branded names this is the largest and therefore most easily targeted part of the market.
Aspirers: These people are driven buy their status. They are likely to buy the latest gadgets, have the best electronics and smart fashion goods. this is a smaller section of the market, but still a large portion
Succeeders: These people are already at the top of the success ladder ad crave control over what they already have. For example. adverts for things such as cars, which emphasise power are directly aimed at this group.
Reformers.: These people want the world to be a better place. They are often well educated people, such as teachers or doctors. They are also likely to buy eco-friendly products that will help the world. E.g fair trade coffee
The Individuals: This group of people respond best to adverts that promote quirkiness and individuality. this group was developed in the 1980's and 90's and the niche audience was a new area to target. this is the smallest area to target, however, this group of people are more likely to remain faithful to a brand rather than chop and change between what's current like the mainstreamers.
We would be marketing our product to The Individuals. as our style is Indie/pop and this would be the best group to target as they would like our product.
Finally, another way to effectively market is buy using Maslow's hierarchy of needs. By finding out which groups people fit into, we can use this pyramid to manipulate the audience into feeling they need to buy a product in order to feel better about themselves. By using and abusing human psychology, it is easy to make a person feel as though they need something in order to improve their self worth.
For example, our average listener to indie pop would probably be a mid-late teenage girl, who is in education, lives in rural england and possibly has a part time job. Because she would probably have not a great deal of spare cash buy making her feel as though this product will help her achieve self actualization, she is more likely to buy it. If she is unemployed, then by buying this product, it may make her feel more socially acceptable, and therefore this alone could be enough to sell the product.
Trhough looking at Demographic and Psychographic profiling, we have ome to the conclusion that our average reader will probably be:
Female
In education.
Late teens/ early 20's
Part time job
Lives in a small town or village in the countryside
Comes from a background without too much money.
This is who we believe is the most likely listener to the Indie/pop music genre.
