CCR Draft #2

     Our magazine is able to connect our target audience because it features a variety of articles that are enjoyable for artists of all skill levels. This means that regardless of one's experience in crafting, cooking, or gardening they should be able to understand the article or at least be interested in the topics. Additionally, we plan to create numerous social media pages. This will allow consumers to stay up to date with out project ideas and even allow them to further understand the crafting ideas. We could use websites such as Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube to create videos or step-by-step instructions to further explain our popular article topics. Also, the use of social media will allow users to be further exposed to our product and cause them to be more interested in our magazine. This will increase revenue.
     Some methods we could use for distribution of real paper products would be through mailing directly to subscribers' homes or on the shelf in various grocery stores and other shops. Additionally, working hard to increase the appeal of articles and photos featured on the cover pages of our products would attract more new customers and increase our number of subscribers. This would not only increase revenue overall, but also allow us to see what types of cover photos and article topics attract the most amount of consumers and which ones don't. Overall, our use of social media and intriguing article topics should attract and connect to the most consumers in our target audience.

CCR Draft #1

For our magazine project, we didn't originally intend to represent a certain social group or issue. We originally wanted to just create a fun-filled product that anyone could enjoy. However, we did end up creating a product that attracts a couple different groups of people. One of these types of consumers is artists, chefs, and gardeners who have a passion for the topics featured in our magazine. Our theme focuses mainly on creative home ideas, therefore angled towards people who enjoy that topic and are knowledgeable about the theme. Additionally, people who have time to enjoy our magazine are another audience group for our magazine. Therefore, another social group represented in our magazine is people who work from home or spend the majority of their day at home. Since there is a variety of projects and articles in our magazines that are about DIY crafting ideas, anyone who wants to pursue the suggestions in the articles should probably have enough time to do so. Many people who have a job that allows them to work at home, are full time parents, or are retired and have plenty of free time to do fun crafting ideas are the main type of people we consider our target audience. A final group of people we consider main consumers of our product are people who may not have experience with arts and crafts, cooking, or landscape decor but want to practice and learn more about it. Our magazine is great for this since we have a variety of types of crafting ideas throughout our magazine, many that are very simple and easy to understand. This means they are great for beginners or people of any skill-set. Overall, our magazine represents and targets a few different social groups, the main ones being people with a passion for our magazine theme, people with the time and effort to pursue arts and crafts, or anyone who wants to learn more through the articles in our magazine.

Distribution Research - Better Homes and Gardens

For this magazine's website main page, it has a similar theme and setup to Good Housekeeping and HGTV's websites as well. It has the same structure of having different layered sections containing different themes such as gardening, cooking, fashion, or celebrity gossip. For this magazine, however, it features much more cooking-related content such as easy home-cooked meals, different dessert recipes, and fun party snacks. The top of the page has a link with a large picture to a new page primarily featuring family craft and cooking ideas. Farther down, it has another section of popular dinner recipes, a section for personal fitness and yoga, another link to a page mainly about pasta dishes, and some other smaller featured pages about beauty products to keep with you at work, more lunch ideas, and home cleaning hacks. Overall, it contains a lot of cooking and food related articles but also features some stories about personal health, family, fashion, and beauty. This suggests that this company is aiming towards a target audience that enjoys cooking and spending time at home with family. It is also probably aiming towards an older age group since there is less celebrity and millennial-themed articles. Additionally, they are most likely angling towards a female audience since many of the fashion, fitness, and beauty articles were for women. Overall, it seems they have a pretty similar target audience as our magazine, but slightly different since we are more crafting based and most likely aiming towards a younger audience.

Distribution Research - Good Housekeeping

For this magazine, it features many different links on their website's homepage. These include large photos for their most popular articles, groups of links to smaller, similar articles, and tab options to switch between pages to view more content. The first articles to be featured are in a group and generally focus on fashion, celebrities, or shopping. Further down the page it displays larger photos about recent popular events which makes consumers want to click on the link to that page. There are three or four of their larger article links before another group of smaller articles. This next sections mainly features stories about news in the royal family. There is also another smaller section beneath that about movies, actors, and celebrity drama. Overall, the set-up and choice of articles to be featured on the main page show that this magazine is trying to project its product towards a certain audience. They are most likely aiming to attract female consumers who enjoy celebrity gossip and are probably home owners who would appreciate articles about home decor. Additionally, they may be trying to reach a target audience of millennials and people who would enjoy an easily to use and accessible website.

Distribution Research - HGTV

For HGTV magazine, its website initially features a couple main articles with bright, colorful photos. The overall theme of these articles is about home decorating and home improvements. This means that the majority of their consumers are homeowners or people who would enjoy using modern gadgets and techniques to improve the decor of their home. As you scroll down the page, there are also some articles mainly based on gardening and plants. These articles seem so be both educational and also just for fun, since some are about easy ideas to improve your landscape or garden. This means that another large group of their audience is crafty and handy with landscaping and the outdoors. As you continue moving down the page, you can also find a section of recent popular videos. This means that they may also be aiming their product towards a younger group who enjoy watching videos online rather than spending the time to read an article. Finally, at the very bottom of the page, they have a text box area that says, "Follow Us", with links to multiple social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. This also makes the company more accessible to millennials or anyone who normally uses social media or the internet.

Distribution Research - Traditional

For a traditional magazine, most would use methods such as displaying their product in stores, through online ads, through emails, social media, and other techniques. One example of a good distribution model is the company Hearst which includes popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, two products that have similar themes and target audiences to our magazine. This company uses techniques like advertising their product in popular grocery stores such as Publix and Target to increase their distribution rate. Additionally, their use a wide variety of online and digital distributions methods such as advertising through social media, on their websites, and through emailing lists. These techniques not only advertise their product but attract millennials and other technologically attracted consumers to their online product. There has been an overall decrease in the amount of revenue gained from paper products like hard copies of magazines or newspapers. Therefore, many companies have turned to the Internet as a more productive method of gaining consumers. Overall, using techniques such as using websites, social media, and emailing for distribution and as ways to increase circulation will be methods utilized in our product.

Revisions - Photo Shoot Planning

To improve the content in my article, I want to add some better pictures and more photos with people in them. However, to do this I need to use a good camera for good photo quality. Within the next couple days, my new iPhone 7 should be coming in so I am waiting for that so I can use its camera for the photo shoot. I should also upload the revised photos on the article and TOC pages within the next week.