Audience research

(Photo taken from google.co.uk/images)

Audience research is used to collect information about how your demographic audience reacts to your product. It is used largely by production companies as it helps them see what their audience sector will be and how to reach them. For example audience research is used in film and television to see how certain audiences react to their film or television programme. It's also used to see if there is a slot in the market for the the product or production. 

There are many factors to consider when categorizing audiences. Age, gender, geodemographics, demographics, hobbies, social-economic classification and ethnographic are just some examples. Separating the audience into different categories makes it easier for companies to establish and target their demographic audience. 

Companies use a wide range of methods to collect the data they need. BARB is a popular method within television. BARB collects viewing figures for TV channels and programmes. Other methods of audience research are:

• Quantitative and qualitative - Questionnaire and surveys 
• Interviews and focus groups
• Observations and inter-forums - Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

What is a demographic audience? A demographic audience or demographics profile is a large marketing tool used by companies. It is used to find out the products audience and how they can market it. Both product marketing companies and broadcasting groups hugely use demographic profiling. For example you wouldn't advertise a new horror film on a childrens channel as it wont reach the correct demographic audience. Demographic profiles are typical put into groupings of gender, age, ethnicity and social-economic. Social-economic classification is a combination of education, income and occupation. 

There are six main social-economic categories: 

                (Photo taken from nrs.co.uk)

Information taken from:

http://www.slideshare.net/AnnieRose95/audience-research-22808080 

Data gathering research and Self-generated research

Examples of  data gathering techniques:

Interview (direct) - An interview if a formal discussion, usually videoed between one or more people. The interviewer/s ask the person/people question regarding something e.g a interviewer from a film magazine might be asking an actor about their upcoming movie. It is a verbal form of collecting data.

Registration - A form of registration research is getting a customer to fill out a form about their opinion of a product or service. It can also be used to gather peoples personal details.  

Questionnaire (indirect) - A questionnaire is a series of questions but the person/people answer in written form which differs from the interview technique which is verbal. 

Experimental - An example of experimental data gathering is selling a product for a trial based time to see how popular the product is and to see if its worth selling on a permanent basis. Another form of experimental research is some production companies release a film but before deciding on making it a sequel they see how the audience reacts to the first. 

Pros and cons of these techniques: 

Interview (direct) - The pros of doing an interview is that you can easily re-watch it over and over again. The cons of an interview is that it may be hard to find someone to interview or peoples schedules might not be the same. Another disadvantage is that if you want to write quotes or have a copy of the interview in writing you will have to watch it and make your own transcript.

Registration - A good reason to use a registration to collect the data you need is that you will have the information written down. Another pro of registration is you don't have to try and get someone to come to a location at a set time as they can do it from anywhere. 

Questionnaire (indirect) - A pro of collecting date indirecting instead of directly, for example like an interview is the sane reason as registrations the questionnaire can be filled out at anytime. However because of this they answers could be from multiple people. Another con of collecting data by questionnaire is that the answers won't be as detailed or long compared to a interview. 

Experimental - The pros of using experimental research to collect  the data is that you can fully see how your demographic audience will react to your product/service/video. A pro to doing a trail run is that it could be costly. 

Self-generated research: 

Self-generated research is collecting data from videos, photography or audio and other forms of media that you create by yourself. 

Examples:

Video
Photography 
Audio 
Articles 
Blog posts

Pros and cons of self-generated research:

The pros of collecting self-generated data is that you now where the information is from because of this you will know that it is reliable. However collecting data personally can also be a con as it may be biased and won't necessarily have a higher credibility. 


Information taken from:
http://people.uwec.edu/piercech/researchmethods/data%20collection%20methods/data%20collection%20methods.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/MrMightyMcD/research-unit-booklet