---
name: niche-content-research
description: >
  Research content ideas for a niche from where the niche actually asks questions:
  communities, YouTube, search suggestions, AI answer engines, podcasts, and your own
  sales and support notes. Clusters what it finds, scores each idea on demand, gap,
  fit, and format, and returns a backlog where every idea links to its evidence. Use
  when planning a content calendar, entering a new niche, or when topic lists keep
  coming from guesses.
license: MIT
source: https://vibemarketers.ai/starter-pack/niche-content-research/SKILL.md
---

# niche-content-research

Build a content idea backlog from evidence of demand, not from brainstorming.

## When this applies

Someone needs topics for a niche and the current list came from a meeting. Or the
content ships and nobody asked for it. This skill finds the questions people in the
niche already ask, in their words, and shows where the existing answers are weak.

## Inputs

Ask for these before starting. Do not guess them.

- **Niche:** one sentence naming who and what ("finance teams at SaaS companies
  closing the books").
- **ICP and product:** read the marketing brain if one exists (the
  product-marketing-context skill writes it). Otherwise ask for a paragraph.
- **Competitors:** domains or channel names, so their coverage can be compared.
- **Private sources, optional:** sales call notes, support tickets, onboarding
  questions. These are the strongest evidence you can get. Use them if given.

## Where to look

Work through each source and record every question or complaint verbatim, with its
URL and the date you collected it.

1. **Communities.** Subreddits, forums, Slack and Discord archives that are public,
   Stack Exchange sites, Hacker News threads. Look for questions, "how do you",
   "what do you use for", and complaints about existing tools.
2. **YouTube.** Search suggestions for the niche's core terms, and the comments on the
   top videos. Comments that say "you skipped" or "but what about" are gaps.
3. **Search suggestions.** Autocomplete and People Also Ask for the core terms.
   Record the exact phrasing.
4. **AI answer engines.** Ask the niche's core questions. Note where the answer is
   thin, generic, hedged, or cites nobody credible. That is a gap you can fill.
5. **Podcasts and newsletters.** Episode and issue titles from the niche's main shows.
   These show what the audience already pays attention to.
6. **Private sources.** Cluster repeated questions from calls and tickets.

## Cluster and score

Group the raw questions into topics. One idea per cluster, phrased as the question a
reader would type. Score each idea 0 to 3 on four axes:

- **Demand:** number of independent sources that raised it. Same thread twice counts
  once.
- **Gap:** how weak the current best answers are, with the weakest answer linked.
- **Fit:** how close it sits to the ICP's problem and to what the product does.
- **Format:** which format the evidence points to (article, video, short,
  comparison, tool, template). A question asked on YouTube wants a video.

## What you produce

A backlog file with one row per idea:

```
| Idea (as a question) | Demand | Gap | Fit | Format | Evidence (URL, date) |
```

Then the top picks, no more than ten, each with a one-line angle: what this piece
says that the current answers do not.

Close with a short section listing the sources you searched and the ones you could
not reach, so the reader knows what the backlog is blind to.

## Rules

- **Never score an idea with zero evidence links.** An idea without evidence goes in
  a separate "unsupported" list at the bottom, unscored.
- **Every quote is verbatim** and keeps its URL and collection date.
- **Never invent volume.** If you have no search volume data, say so. Do not estimate.
- **Public data only.** Do not log in to read private groups. Respect each platform's
  terms.
- **Do not write the content.** This skill finds and ranks ideas. Drafting is a
  separate job.

## Self-check before you hand it over

1. Does every scored idea link to at least one source with a date?
2. Would removing any single source drop an idea's demand score? If every idea rests
   on one thread, the research is too narrow; say so.
3. Is each top pick's angle something the linked weak answer actually lacks?
4. Did you list the sources you could not reach?