The Outlier Method: How to Find YouTube Video Ideas Before You Film

Most YouTubers pick their next video idea by guessing. And most of those guesses get a few hundred views. You spend a weekend scripting, filming and editing, hit publish, and then watch the view count crawl.

There's a better way to choose what to make: the outlier method. Instead of guessing, you look for ideas that are already working on YouTube, and you find them before you film anything. This guide walks you through the outlier method for YouTube in three steps, and shows you a free tool that does the boring part in about 10 seconds.

What is an outlier video?

An outlier is a video that performs far better than that channel normally does.

Say a channel usually gets around 5,000 views per video. Then one video gets 80,000. That's 16 times their average.

Same channel. Same subscribers. Same creator. So the big result wasn't because the channel is huge. It was because of the idea and the packaging: the topic, the title and the thumbnail.

If you want the longer explanation, read our guide to what an outlier video is on YouTube.

Why views alone tell you nothing

This is the important part, and it's where most people go wrong.

A video with a million views on a channel that always gets a million isn't an outlier. It's just a normal day for them. Big channels get big numbers. That tells you about the channel, not the idea.

So you're looking for the multiplier, not the raw number. When a video does 10 or 20 times a channel's normal views, YouTube is telling you something:

• Viewers wanted this topic.
• They clicked this title.
• And they clicked this thumbnail.

That's proof. So instead of starting from zero, you start with an idea that already has proof behind it.

It works best when you look at channels around your size, in your niche. If a small channel can get an outlier, that idea can probably work for you too. A big channel's hit might just be its fanbase showing up. A small channel's hit is the idea doing the work.

The outlier method in 3 steps

Here's the method. Three steps, no special skills needed.

Step 1: Make a list of channels in your niche

Aim for 10 to 20 channels. Include some that are smaller than you, some the same size and some a bit bigger. This mix keeps your ideas realistic. You're not trying to copy what works for a channel with ten million subscribers. You want ideas that broke out for creators like you.

Step 2: Compare each video's views to the channel's average

For each channel, go through its videos and compare each video's views to that channel's normal views. Then look for anything at three times or more. The maths is simple:

80,000 views ÷ 5,000 normal views = a 16X outlier. Anything at 3X or more is worth a closer look.

Step 3: Ask yourself three questions

1. What's the core idea? Strip away the title and the editing. What is the video really about?
2. Why would someone click this title? Curiosity, a big promise, a challenge, a mistake to avoid?
3. How could I make my own version, from my angle, with my experience?

That third question is where your next video comes from.

You're not copying videos

Quick but important point: the outlier method is not about copying videos. You're borrowing the topic and the format, and then making something that's actually yours. If the outlier is "I tried X for 30 days", your version is what happened when you tried it, in your niche.

The idea is proven. The video is yours.

The slow part (and how to skip it)

Doing this by hand is slow. You're scrolling through channel after channel, working out averages and sorting videos. It can easily take an hour or two to do properly, and you'll need to do it again next week.

That's why we built PimpMyViews. Right on the home page there's a free outlier checker. No sign-up, no login. You paste in a channel, and it shows you that channel's outlier videos and how many times above average each one performed. So the hour of spreadsheet work takes about 10 seconds.

If you want to go further, the full version tracks channels across your niche and surfaces outliers for you, so you've always got a list of proven ideas waiting. For the full manual walkthrough, see how to find outlier videos in any niche.

Your homework

Don't just read this. Try it this week:

1. Go to [pimpmyviews.com](https://pimpmyviews.com).
2. Put in three channels from your niche.
3. Find one outlier you could make your own version of.

That's it. One proven idea, made yours, beats ten guesses. And the more outliers you look at, the faster you'll train your eye for what gets clicked.