Online Content Marketing: How to Generate Story Ideas for Tough Niches

When you decide that you want to start a blog for marketing purposes, the very first thing you want to do is hone in on a “niche.” In a nutshell, a niche will be what your blog will be about—perhaps it will focus on cooking, parenting tips, celebrity news, health and fitness, or like this specific blog, marketing tips.  Coming up with a niche is typically easy since clients will tell you what they’re representing. But there are some “tougher” niches out there— such as business insurance niches, business credit cards niches, or even health insurance niches— that may cause you to hit a content roadblock or two sometime in the future. It’s just not as easy to generate enough relevant and interesting topics to address in certain areas. And while you may have tons of article ideas at first, sooner or later the creative well might run dry. To be better prepared for when that day comes, it’s best to know how to use all of the available (and free) resources around you that can help with idea-generation. To make sure your or your client’s editorial calendar is always full, continue reading below.

Google News

Google News is by far one of the most useful and reliable sources you will have access to. That’s because by choosing one or two of the right key words, you will be directed to a list of online publications and other news sources that reported the latest information on your niche topic. For example, let’s say you have a boring niche like business insurance. All you need to do is type in the words insurance and business and voila! Google News will direct you to the latest news stories that have those key words in it. Right off the bat, I see a PR release entitled “Affordable Insurance for Startups, Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs.” I can definitely address this story on my business insurance site. To make it more comprehensive and original, perhaps I’ll add a bulleted list of all the types of insurance policies for small business owners. Use the articles found on Google News to inspire, but make sure to give credit where it is due and put your own original twist on it.

Social Media

Scouring various social media sites can also be a fountain of great ideas. First things first: you want to follow or add organizations and publications that are related to your field. Continuing with the business insurance angle, you could follow high profile business insurance agents or even fellow business insurance marketing companies. They tweet and post about some interesting and engaging topics. On Twitter specifically, you can use the power of the pound sign (#) to help put you in the right direction.  For example, writing #businessinsurance in the search bar brings me to a list of fellow bloggers, news organizations, and regular consumers who have written about the topic or have questions/concerns.

Morning Talk Radio

Lastly is the radio, something I listening to every morning while I get dressed and eat breakfast. Sometimes broadcasters specifically report on topics that pertain to your niche, but sometimes just simply exchanging words back and forth and listening to audience call phone calls can also spark the beginnings of a great article for your niche.

Remember that anything can potentially be a story idea for your niche; you just know how to keep an open mind and notice everything around you.

Carol Wilson is a freelance insurance business writer who is in the midst of creating her very own business insurance guide for consumers. In the meantime, she likes to share her knowledge of business insurance and other business related topics such as marketing to small business owners, entrepreneurs, and other corporate moguls. She welcomes your comments at wilson.carol24@gmail.com.