Analyze Furusato Nozei trends from Google News to Slack

This workflow acts as a specialized market analyst for Japan's "Furusato Nozei" (Hometown Tax) system. It automates the process of monitoring related news, validating keyword popularity via search trends, and delivering a concise, strategic report to Slack.

By combining RSS feeds, AI agents, and real-time search data, this template helps marketers and municipal researchers stay on top of the highly competitive Hometown Tax market without manual searching.

👥 Who is this for?

• Municipal Government Planners: To track trending return gifts and competitor strategies.
• E-commerce Marketers: To identify high-demand keywords for Furusato Nozei portals.
• Content Creators: To find trending topics for blogs or social media regarding tax deductions.
• Market Researchers: To monitor the seasonality and shifting interests in the Hometown Tax sector.

⚙️ How it works

1. News Ingestion: The workflow triggers on a schedule and fetches the latest "Furusato Nozei" articles from Google News via RSS.
2. AI Analysis & Extraction: An AI Agent (using OpenRouter) summarizes the news cluster and identifies the most viable search keyword (e.g., "Scallops," "Travel Vouchers," or specific municipalities).
3. Data Validation: The workflow queries the Google Trends API (via SerpApi) to retrieve search volume history for the extracted keyword in Japan.
4. Strategic Reporting: A second AI Agent analyzes the search trend data alongside the keyword to generate a market insight report.
5. Delivery: The final report is formatted and sent directly to a Slack channel.

🛠️ Requirements

To use this workflow, you will need:

• n8n (Version 1.0 or later recommended).
• OpenRouter API Key (or you can swap the model nodes for OpenAI/Anthropic).
• SerpApi Key (Required to fetch Google Trends data programmatically).
• Slack Account (with permissions to post to a channel).

🚀 How to set up

1. Configure Credentials:
   • Add your OpenRouter API key to the Chat Model nodes.
   • Add your SerpApi key to the Google Trends API node.
   • Connect your Slack account in the Send a message node.
2. Check the RSS Feed:
   • The RSS Read node is pre-configured for "Furusato Nozei" (ふるさと納税). You can leave this as is.
3. Regional Settings:
   • The workflow is pre-set for Japan (jp / ja). If you need to change this, check the Workflow Configuration and Google Trends API nodes.
4. Schedule:
   • Enable the Schedule Trigger node to run at your preferred time (default is 9:00 AM JST).

🎨 How to customize

• Change the Topic: While this is optimized for Furusato Nozei, you can change the RSS feed URL to track other Japanese market trends (e.g., NISA, Inbound Tourism).
• Swap AI Models: The template uses OpenRouter, but you can easily replace the "Chat Model" nodes with OpenAI (GPT-4) or Anthropic (Claude) depending on your preference.
• Adjust AI Prompts: The AI prompts are currently in Japanese to match the content. You can modify the system instructions in the AI Agent nodes if you prefer English reports.