Continuing from my post the other day, in the next 2 posts I’m going to look at some other client industries, finding the inspiration from places that aren’t a daily newspaper such as The Times.

First up, Google News, and the industries I’ll be looking at are an online retailer of a specific GPS tracking product for cats or dogs; and a firm operating in the building / house repair market.

This is obviously similar to the newspaper idea, but it’s so much more immediate and has the great advantage of being searchable. For example, a search for “cats” brings up several relevant news stories that could be turned into a post:

1) Apparently it’s National Cat Day (in the US) – fairly obvious how we can utilise this for a blog post.

2) A group of people trying to track down possible cat theives have put together a map of where cats have gone missing from in Ipswich (a story that is almost tailor-made for our product).

3) Also – and this is the kind of thing that happens more frequently than you’d imagine once you’re attuned to it – a couple of weeks ago there was a BBC2 series entitled “Cat Watch”, which followed cats around all day (the cats wearing mini cameras to record their movements). Another fairly obvious association we can make for this product.

Regarding the building trade client, another Google News search (for “damp proofing”) provides the following stories for inspiration:

1) A parent in Sutton Coldfield is concerned by mould in her home which could damage her children – something a damp proof course could fix.

2) A funny story about a bridge with no damp proofing being recounted at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival.

3) And, of course, there are innumerable TV programmes that are based on renovating houses or building a dream home from scratch, such as Grand Designs, Homes Under the Hammer, DIY SOS etc.

So it’s not difficult to see how we can use Google News and TV programmes to provide us with ideas for posts – even short ones including links to the original story for things like Twitter.