Target Audience Magazine Research (Instyle Magazine)

Donna Magazine Target Audience:

  Donna magazine's target audience are lower to upper middle class women of all races and education statuses aged 18-50 years old, leaning more to women aged 18-30. (Younger Millennials to older Gen Z). These women are usually characterized as having a taste for the luxurious as well as having an interest in social and political issues that plague modern day industries. (racism, sexism, classism etc.) Our target audience ideally has strong political beliefs founded on feminist ideas, and are somewhat educated on current events and movements.

Social Media:

   InStyle magazine makes use of social media, particularly an Instagram account, to market their magazine. The account posts frequently, with an average of 6 posts daily. The posts discuss fashion and beauty as well as social politics (Feminism, remembering advancements in civil rights and political figures of color.) This pattern is broken when a new issue is released. Usually about two or three extra posts focusing on the new issue of the magazine are posted. What InStyle generally posts reaches a younger audience by incorporating memes, "gifs", and common pop culture references that an older audience would not relate or connect to as well. They compensate for this fact by posting about more sophisticated events such as New York Fashion Week and a variety of other high-class events.

     InStyle magazine also has a very active Twitter account on which they comment and report on scandals, fashion, beauty and celebrity news, emphasizing mostly on celebrity news. This form of marketing also helps attract a younger audience by being up to date on scandals and other drama involving current popular celebrities. On Twitter, the InStyle account has amassed a following of 2.5 million followers.

Social Events:

        Aside from social media, InStyle promotes their magazine through special social events. One of these events,which is hosted in Macquarie Park, Australia, includes a collaboration between a shopping center (Macquarie Centre) and a variety of Australian brands and designers. This "Shopping Night" event allows the public to interact with their favorite stylists and designers and enjoy complimentary goody bags as well as discounts offered by the local brands in the shopping center. Also available at this event are tattoo bars, braid bars, complimentary spa treatments such as massages, an "InStyle Team" that gives out styling advice to the event-goers and a meet and greet with multiple InStyle Australia editors. This Shopping night allows the readers and prospective readers of the magazine to become interested and engaged with the material and makes the brand more personable as a whole.  

      Another event that InStyle participates in is the "Summer Soiree" or the "Summer Social", which helps connect bloggers and influencers in the United States with various brands. This event serves as a way to connect with socialites and brands in order to maintain good status with them and hopefully spread good publicity about the brand, thus bringing in new readers or brand deals to the magazine.

Email Blasts (Brand Deals from Partners): 

   InStyle offers email newsletters that are received daily (InStyle Fashion, Beauty and Celebrity), four times a week (InStyle Shopping), two times a week (InStyle This Week: Royals Edition) or whenever there's any new offers or breaking news (InStyle's The Scoop, Brand deals, affiliate program deals and breaking news.) This appeals to a wide range of readers and piques every interest imaginable. It piques the interest of perspective buyers by enticing them to check out deals and brands that support them while also getting the latest celebrity news and gossip.

Application of Techniques:

I would personally want to use all of the above techniques to market my magazine due to their impact and efficacy in the real world. These techniques appeal to reader in various ways, specifically by offering "irresistible deals", referencing pop culture to relate to a younger audience, hosting events to spread positive publicity about the brand etc. Ideally for my magazine's demographic, I would want to mostly make use of social media due to modern day society's increasing dependence on it.