Niche magazines

RESEARCHING A NICHE MAGAZINE


ABC : audit bureau of circulations


A NICHE magazine is a magazine about a sub-genre of a major genre which has a lot of depth to it. Niche magazines have many pros and cons which drive their publication and population.


PROS:

• the audience they are targeting will be far more loyal and committed to buying the magazine each week
• the magazine will have more specific content

CONS:

• niche magazines means their target audience will be smaller
• smaller audiences means smaller income
• can't include much variation

I am now going to look and study a niche magazine and look at its sales, marketing and publications. 

Cross Stitcher is an example of a niche magazine. It sells around 38,684 magazines every six months and last year, it's sales decreased by -18.7%. Sales most likely dropped because one; this is a very niche hobby and so will have a small target audience and two; because it is such a rare hobby. Another reason cross stitching magazines are going "out of fashion" is because people will be spending more money on the equipment they need and not wasting it on magazines when all the information people can pay for from the magazine they can get for free from the internet nowadays. 

However, although Cross Stitcher is decreasing in sales, two similar magazines; The World of Cross Stitching and Cross Stitch Crazy, both 
owned by Immediate Media Company, sales have increase. However,thesemagazines are associated with the BBC therefore although they are publishing a niche magazine, have a huge backing which will able to publicise the magazines more, making people more aware of them. This therefore explains their sale increases. Future Publishing, on the other hand, own Cross Stitcher who have decreased. Future Publishing owns a lot of computer and television based magazines and so wont be "showing off" and giving cross stitching as much recognition.

The magazine to the right is the cover of the magazine I have been discussing. Its typical niche target audience is going to be women and that is most probably the reason the colour theme is based around pink and yellow and is covered in flowers and girly fonts. There are  several sell lines and promotional images which they could be doing to bring in and interest new readers.