Conduct an audience study

Who is your audience? What are they looking for? How can you measure their satisfaction and take their feedback into account? This practical guide outlines our method and provides concrete examples for conducting an audience study.

1. Audience research: What is it all about?

An audience study is a monograph, namely a study limited to a specific object X at a specific time T based on empirical analysis of concrete facts and data. In this case, specifically in our case, an audience study is an analysis of the existing and/or target audiences of a media outlet at a given moment in the existence of this project.

An audience study aims to deepen our understanding of target audiences, their needs, and their behaviors in order to offer them tailored editorial content. It is part of a broader effort to analyze audiences, including the creation of personas, analytical tracking of audiences, etc.*.*

An audience study draws on marketing knowledge but also and especially on sociology. Its methodology and construction share certain aspects with reception studies developed in the humanities and social sciences.

It is underpinned by specific axes that make it possible to find useful answers for the media through precise questions. The more an audience study is precise, prepared in advance, specific to the project, to its needs, to what it must know about its audiences in order to solve its problem/evolve, the more effective the audience study becomes.

The audience study is both quantitative and qualitative. It thus covers:

• Quantitative, concrete, and diverse data that depends on the questions asked of the audience. This might involve, for example, measuring the percentage of the audience by age group, determining the average monthly budget users spend on paid media and cultural subscriptions, measuring the conversion rate and the rate at which users who sign up for a free newsletter go on to subscribe, the engagement rate on social media, etc.;
• Qualitative data that depends on the questions asked of the audience. A distinctive feature of this data is that it requires a greater reliance on scientific concepts drawn from the humanities, social sciences, or marketing in order to be analyzed. It helps us understand how things work and how people behave, as well as gain insight into audiences’ perspectives, opinions, feelings, needs, behaviors, and potential desires. This might involve, for example, understanding when, for how long, through which medium, and in what formats a user feels most comfortable; understanding what prompted them to subscribe or unsubscribe; their relationship with the media; their dissatisfactions; their expectations for the future; etc.

2. Why conduct an audience study?

Addressing a lack of awareness among its audiences

All too often, precise knowledge of audiences is overlooked – even in the media world. Yet audiences should always be placed at the heart of projects, particularly editorial strategies, communications, and marketing. Audiences should be a backbone from which the media develops, evolves, and deploys its project.

It’s worth remembering that, in principle, you don’t create a media outlet for yourself but rather for others—that is, for audiences to whom you want to convey a certain type of information for one reason or another. To do so, however, one must understand these audiences’ profiles, their mindset, their media environment, their needs, their habits, their preferred platforms and formats, and their reasoning; one must also assess their financial resources and, more generally, their tastes.

If the media outlet does not know its audiences, their profile(s), their gender, their age, their habits, their preferred content, the media they consume, their budget dedicated to media, information and culture, their satisfaction level and their relationship with the media outlet, their sensitivities in terms of preferred content/formats/platforms, an audience study seems necessary.

Supporting the media outlet through the various stages of its life cycle

Furthermore, audience research helps address a media outlet’s lack of knowledge about its audiences. It can be general in scope, providing a comprehensive profile of audiences at a given point in time, or it can be more specific, allowing for a deeper exploration of certain aspects necessary for realigning a media outlet’s strategy, ensuring its successful development, or undertaking a redesign or rebranding (changing its brand image), etc.

As a snapshot in time, it goes without saying that audience research must be repeated regularly to track changes in audiences (profiles, needs, engagement, satisfaction) and keep them at the center of the media outlet's strategy. This allows the media to measure the success or failure of implemented strategies, new content, and new formats.

Audience research can be conducted at different stages of a media outlet's existence:

• Before launching their project, to conduct market research ;
• Shortly after launch, 6 months to a year later once an initial community has already formed;
• Annually, to stay connected with audiences, their developments, and their feedback;
• As part of a new positioning, an overhaul of the editorial line, an evolution of the media's value proposition;
• As part of the evolution and development of the media (new formats, new types of content, new platforms, etc.);
• In the event of a crisis situation (mass unsubscriptions, significant drop in media visits/purchases).

Some limitations to be aware of

However, it should be noted that an audience study has limitations.

First, if it is imprecise in the questions asked, the usable data will be weak and will not provide the material needed to develop an effective strategy.

Secondly, an audience study cannot be as comprehensive as one might hope and must not take more than 5 to 8 minutes for the user, since the user must agree to participate. Also, the audience study must be short, engaging, potentially fun, above all precise, and must not require the user to make an effort to read, understand, or write.

Third, we must take into account the fact that responses given by audiences are not necessarily complete, nuanced, or entirely candid. Indeed, the user will agree to reveal part of their opinion and usage patterns, but may not disclose everything, nor will they necessarily be entirely accurate or transparent.

That said, an audience study makes it possible to identify trends, directions, formulate hypotheses, and propose avenues for reflection and exploration, but it does not have the value of absolute, complete, or immutable truth.

Finally, an audience study is just one step among many toward understanding your audience. Others include analyzing usage patterns based on existing studies, creating personas, analyzing your media metrics, and conducting qualitative interviews.

3. How do you conduct an audience study?

Conduct your audience research in seven steps:

Step 1 — Start with your media project

Vision and editorial direction, values, content, formats, tone, user journey: Make sure you have a clear understanding of your project.

Your initial insights into your audiences will help you identify some initial areas to explore in your audience research.

Before you begin designing the questionnaire, start with the identified/target audiences—whether you’re drawing on more general studies or your personas.

Your role is essential to the successful distribution of the questionnaire. Make sure that the format is as consistent as the content, and that your team is fully informed about its distribution and communication.

Step 2 — Ask Yourself the Right Questions

An audience study must serve a clear objective of the media project. Without a clear vision, the data will be difficult to use.

Before designing a questionnaire, it is essential to ask yourself what kinds of answers you want to obtain and on what topics. For example, you might want to:

• Create a profile: gain a more detailed understanding of the profiles of your current or target audience (readers, contributors, donors, newsletter **or social media** subscribers);
• Assessing engagement: learning more about an audience’s existing or potential sense of belonging to a specific topic, cause, or media outlet;
• Assessing satisfaction: gathering feedback from the community on the editorial formats and content of an existing media outlet, or on usage patterns and media coverage of a particular topic;
• Assess understanding: gain a more detailed understanding of what the target or current audience understands about the media outlet’s value proposition (editorial line, vision for topics/subjects) or the specific topic/subject being covered.

Would you like to extend the experience afterward? Invite your audience to express their interest by signing up for a newsletter or providing more detailed answers during an interview, for example.

Step 3 — Organize Your Questionnaire

Divide your questionnaire into several sections by topic (for example, 1. Respondent profile and usage; 2. Current relationship with the media; 3. The future of the media);

Write short introductions for each section to present the media outlet, including details relevant to that section, in order to accurately convey the outlet’s identity, current offerings, and objectives.

Keep the user experience in mind when designing the questionnaire: the more concise the questionnaire is, the less likely respondents are to abandon it halfway through!

Keep in mind that this questionnaire may be shared outside the media outlet’s channels (newsletter, social media, website); as such, it serves as a communication tool for the media outlet.

Be sure to ask respondents for their email addresses if you feel it is necessary, and at the same time explain how and by whom this information will be used.

Step 4 — Be specific when designing your questionnaire

Use existing categories as a starting point to develop your questions (age, socioeconomic status, usage patterns) and draw on existing studies (such as the Digital News Report, or any other study relevant to your project).

Identify specific areas you want to explore, which will lead to a series of questions. Ask clear, concise questions—get straight to the point.

Provide as much context as possible for your questions. Use subheadings to clarify your points or provide examples. You can also add visuals to break up your questionnaire, if they are helpful.

Step 5 — Embed Your Questionnaire

When embedding surveys, we often use Typeform and Tally. There are also open-source solutions available. The most important thing is that the tool be suited to your needs and those of your audience.

In the questionnaire, use single-choice or multiple-choice questions rather than open-ended questions to make data processing easier. If you include open-ended questions, limit the length of the responses.

Use colors and formatting that are consistent with your project's visual identity.

Step 6 — Share Your Audience Research

How many responses would you like to receive? At what point will you be satisfied with this survey? Set your goals before publishing the survey. For an existing audience, the ideal is to aim for 10% of that audience. This figure should be considered in the context of the nature of your questionnaire and the stage of your project.

The study should be shared with the target audience—whether internal or external—through the team’s and media outlet’s own channels (website, social media, newsletter, radio, video, etc.). The study may also be shared on external platforms, media outlets, and groups (Facebook, LinkedIn) with similar target audiences.

To maximize the number of responses and ensure the sample is as representative as possible, we recommend running the survey for at least two weeks. This timeframe should be considered in context and adapted to the target audience and the publication schedule of the media outlet.

Be sure to encourage your target audience to take your survey—by highlighting the benefits, offering a prize, etc. And say thank you! Your audience is taking the time to complete your survey, so treat them well.

Promote the release of your audience survey by creating dedicated content on your website, social media, or in your newsletter to introduce the survey and its objectives to your community. The goal is to inspire your audience to get involved and help you.

You can share the results of your audience survey and offer tailored content across your various distribution channels. You can also announce the changes you’ll implement based on your audiences’ responses to strengthen your connection with them.

Step 7 — Review the Results of Your Audience Study

Once your survey is complete, it’s time to move on to analyzing the responses. Be sure to close the survey in the tool you used to process a specific number of responses. You can use the summary generated by Typeform to help guide your analysis.

Once again, feel free to compare these findings with existing studies (Reuters Digital News Report, INSEE, Mediamétrie, etc.).

Compile the study’s findings, section by section, into a single document, summarizing the methodology used and highlighting both qualitative and quantitative data.

Think about the best way to visualize your data (data visualization screenshots, key metrics), and then share the results with your team, those who took the time to respond, potential partners, your community… via **the appropriate channels (newsletters, social media).

Finally, make your strategic decisions and guide your actions based on the study’s findings.

Make studying a part of your routine: go ahead and schedule your next study session!

4. Inspirations

When creating your audience study, feel free to draw inspiration from various audience studies focused on topics different from your own, while keeping your specific objective in mind (gaining a comprehensive understanding of your audiences, repositioning your brand identity, strategic realignment, launching new content or a new format, a post-launch review after one year, etc.).

A selection of studies conducted by media outlets in collaboration with our studio

• Games and Strategy: an initial audience study conducted in conjunction with the media outlet’s pre-launch, featuring acknowledgments at the top of the first newsletter sent out, and a comprehensive report published on the media outlet’s website.
• Louie Media: Every year, the podcast studio conducts an audience survey of its audience and podcast listeners (2024, 2025, 2026) and shares the results on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram.
• Socialter: This summer, the editorial team launched a new survey shared on LinkedIn, offering participants a promotional code to use on the website and a chance to win a subscription through a random drawing at the end of the survey.
• Streetpress: An article published on the website that summarizes the results of a survey designed to gather readers’ ideas and feedback to help develop the publication.

A range of studies conducted by media outlets that we appreciate and support

• Mediapart: a study published exclusively on the mobile app, aimed at improving the user experience on that platform.

5. Our Educational Resource

The Médianes team has prepared a handy document to help you apply the lessons from this fact sheet to your own project.

6. Further Reading

• Collecting reader data raises a question of transparency: what if getting to know your readership meant less surveillance, not more?
• Want to reach "Gen Z"? Check out Julia Lasry's column, which encourages us to take a more nuanced look at the new generation.
• User Research at The Atlantic: Read the interview with Gina Bulla, Executive Director of Audience Research.
• Incorporating audience feedback after a study: the case of the Medium newsletter.