Your best work results from a deep understanding of who you’re creating for. You have to define your intended audience.
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Why Your Team Needs You To Be Precise
If you want your team to do bold, creative work, you must take the first risk by giving them clear, precise direction. Here are a few ways to do so.
Great insight Todd. Thanks for all you do. We’ve been working on creating “buyer personas” for each of our targets and it is so helpful to create with that ONE person in mind. We even go so far as to name them and find a photograph that fits. Congrats on all your success and work! Looking forward to a great 2015!
Nicholson Baker says that he writes exactly what he would like to read. Can you be your own intended audience? I write for myself because I find it makes writing more enjoyable (and easier because I know exactly what I like), but have a back-up person with a similar sensibility whom I’m also filtering my words through. Should I cowboy up and pick just one person?
Thank you Todd, for all your fabulous advice.
That’s a great question, Lynne. Personally, I also write “at” myself quite a bit, but for longer arc projects I always write for a specific other person, mostly because it helps me stay on-target when things get challenging. However, I think it also depends on the nature of your work. Many songwriters I’ve known, for instance, write the kind of music they’d want to listen to. I think the differentiator is whether you are crafting a piece of high art, a message, or a product. (All of these can be art, of course, but some are more pragmatic and are designed to accomplish a purpose other than admiration.)
Great analogy with songwriting. Am writing novelty tunes of fiction, however I do have a website where I want to be of some service, and having a particular person in mind whom I want to help is extremely useful.
Thanks again.
Great topic. I listened while sitting at my potter’s wheel cutting feet on dinner plates. I’m a potter and I’ve always considered myself someone who makes work for the ‘masses’. My intention for many years has been to make work for the middle class to use in their homes. This has sort of worked out but honestly it seems like things have declined over the last decade or so as those folks have less income to spend on things like hand made craft. Your episode gave me pause and I think it’s time to reconsider who I am making for. And to be very specific. Honestly, it scares me to do this. It may mean changing my philosophy. Or maybe it will just mean I have to work harder to get my pots in the ‘right’ place. “My work is not for you”. That really struck me as something I need to think on as well. Thanks Todd.
This was a great podcast. As a fresh Graphic Design graduate, I think choosing such a specific audience is something that I’ve struggled with on projects and I think it has held me back from creating work that really connects as deeply as I’d like sometimes. I think when I work on concepts from now on I am going to make a point to define a very specific person, maybe even making a little profile for them in my mood board. I love the idea that Jim mentioned below, of including a photograph of that person. Thanks for the great ideas, as always.