Deciding who your content is not for

Ask somebody who their content is for and you get an answer that sounds like a description and works like a shrug. Anyone interested in cooking. Small business owners. People who want to learn the piano.

Now ask the same person who it is emphatically not for. Long pause. That question has usually never been considered, and its answer changes what gets filmed on Saturday.

What does a clear boundary help you decide?

A specific audience gives the work a clearer starting point. Someone outside it may still enjoy the video; the brief simply does not have to serve every possible need.

A video pitched to hold everybody has to assume the least possible shared knowledge, avoid every position anybody could disagree with, and use vocabulary common to the whole group. What survives that process is generic by construction, and generic is not merely dull, it is unrecognisable. Nobody watching it thinks that is aimed at me, because it is not aimed anywhere.

The uncomfortable part is that this does not fail loudly. Content written to avoid offence gets watched a bit, liked a bit, and quietly cannot be told apart from everyone else's. It fails by being indistinguishable, which is the failure mode people find hardest to diagnose in their own work.

What does "not for" mean?

Not people you dislike, and not people you refuse to help. People whose needs would pull your videos in a direction that stops them serving the group you have chosen.

Three kinds, and it is worth writing at least one of each.

The wrong level. If your videos are for people two years in, the complete beginner is not your audience, and every time you stop to define a basic term you spend the patience of the group you are serving.

The wrong intent. Somebody who wants a hobby is a different viewer from somebody who wants a business, even on identical subject matter, and material that satisfies one bores the other.

Different priorities. A viewer seeking a quick answer may need something different from a detailed course. Decide which need this piece serves, without treating irritation as evidence that the positioning works.

What changes downstream?

Five things, all of which you are currently deciding by instinct on a case-by-case basis.

The words you use

For viewers who already use the terms, get straight to the new idea. For those learning them, name the term and explain it where it first matters. You can keep the precision in both versions; what changes is how much shared knowledge you assume.

The level you assume

How far in do you start? A video that begins at step four is unusable to a beginner and an enormous relief to somebody who has watched four introductory videos this week and wants what comes after them.

The length and the platform

Intent and prior knowledge help decide how much explanation is useful. A committed learner may still need a short answer, and a casual viewer may stay for a compelling long piece. Choose the length and platform for the actual task.

The ask at the end

Choose a next step that fits the video and the audience’s likely need. A hobbyist may book tuition; a business owner may prefer a newsletter. The label alone does not determine the action.

What you stop making

The most valuable consequence. Ideas that clearly serve the excluded group get recognised as such before you spend a Saturday filming them.

Boundaries in practice

A piano teacher

For adults returning to the piano after learning as children, rather than first-time or conservatoire-level players. Build on what they remember, with a route back to the notation or technique a passage needs. The tone can welcome a return without making rustiness the subject of every lesson.

A joiner

Not for other joiners, and not for people who want to attempt the work themselves. For homeowners deciding whether a fitted thing is worth commissioning. Which means the videos show the decisions rather than the technique, never explain how to do it, and can be honest about when the answer is not to bother, because that honesty is the entire product.

A business coach

Not for people looking for motivation. For owners with a specific operational problem this week. Which means no aspirational language, no life-story openings, one problem per video, and a title that names the problem in the words the owner would use at ten at night.

Put it in writing

Two lines, on the same page, above your desk.

These videos are for: one person, one line, with what they already know. These videos are not for: two or three groups, named plainly.

Then take the next three ideas on your list and hold them against the second line. Any that serve the excluded groups better than the included one get dropped, and the relief of dropping them is how you know the exclusion is real rather than decorative.

Sources and evidence

Our method. Two lines are written down: who the videos are for, one person, one line, and who they are emphatically not for, two or three groups named plainly. Every idea on the list is held against the second line before it is filmed, and anything that serves an excluded group better than the intended one is dropped.