Why Choosing "Quit Smoking and Oral Health" as a Content Track Makes It Easier to Achieve Stable Profits in 2–3 Years

I didn't start content entrepreneurship from "what has the most traffic," but from a calculable account: whether users will come back repeatedly in the next 12–36 months; whether they are willing to pay for "less pain, less embarrassment, less family conflict"; and whether I have to compete with tens of thousands of homogeneous accounts for the same audience.

Around 2024, I narrowed my focus to an intersection—Quit Smoking and Oral Health. Not because these two terms seem "prestigious," but because smokers' oral problems are repeatedly triggered in the mirror, the dental clinic, a date, or a child's remark. The demand doesn't need you to educate it; it comes knocking on its own. Below I break it down by demand rigidity, willingness to pay, and competitive landscape, interspersed with the pitfalls I encountered when testing content, talking to users, and running conversions.

I. Demand Rigidity: Not "Wanting to Be a Little Better," but "Already Hurting, Smelling Bad, Being Scolded"

1. The Base Is Too Large, and It Won't Disappear Overnight

In public surveys, the current smoking rate among Chinese people aged 15 and above was 23.2% in 2024, down 0.9 percentage points from 2022; the smoking cessation rate among smokers was approximately 22.6%. The total number of smokers remains on the order of 300 million. Another study, based on the 2020 census caliber, estimates that about 100 million current smokers aged 20–69 have a desire to quit, of which approximately 52.14 million are tobacco-dependent.

My own judgment is that tobacco control policies will continue to reduce smoking rates, but the population of "want to quit + can't quit + quit and relapsed" will be large enough to support a batch of vertical content businesses for the next decade. You don't need all 300 million people in the country to watch you; you only need to be credible enough among that small group of people who are "pushed to the edge of a quit decision by oral problems."

2. Oral Health Turns "Abstract Health" into "a Problem You Can See Every Day in the Mirror"

WHO points out that tobacco is one of the key modifiable risk factors for oral diseases; globally, severe periodontal disease cases exceed 1 billion, with major risks including poor oral hygiene and smoking. According to relevant disclosures from China's Fourth National Oral Health Epidemiology Survey, the periodontal health rate among the elderly is extremely low (about 9.3% for ages 65–74), and the daily twice-brushing rate among adults is only about one-third.

What I say to users is not "smoking increases cancer risk by X percent"—they've heard that a hundred times and still light up the next day. What works better are other scenarios:

Rigidity comes from the perceptible frequency of the pain point. Lung cancer risk is a decade away; bleeding gums, bad breath, yellow teeth, and implant quotes are problems you face this month.

3. A "Return Visit Structure" Naturally Exists in Content

Quitting smoking doesn't end after reading one article. Users go through:

This means the same group of people will enter your content funnel multiple times over 6–24 months. In March 2025, I reviewed my own public account backend: series articles starting with oral health had significantly higher 30-day return visit rates than pure "Day N of quitting" check-in content. Not because the writing was better, but because the users' problems hadn't been solved.

Pitfall I stepped into: In late 2023, I did two weeks of purely inspirational check-in content, posting daily "Day X of quitting." Readership was inflated, but conversion via private messages was extremely poor. What users wanted wasn't chicken soup, but actionable next steps like "my gums are still swollen, what should I do? my mouth tastes bitter, is that withdrawal? when is it suitable to get a cleaning?"

II. Willingness to Pay: Paying for "Results and Dignity" Is Easier Than Paying for "Knowledge"

1. They Are Already Spending, Just Spending It Wastefully

Smokers' annual expenditure on tobacco is a necessity-level consumption. Once their oral health collapses, the costs are equally unforgiving: cleaning, periodontal treatment, implants, ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. The user's mental accounting goes like this—

"I spend X thousand a year on cigarettes, and Y ten-thousand on one implant. If content/products help me avoid two implants, or help me get through the toughest 2 weeks of withdrawal, it's worth the price."

The global smoking cessation market is estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars in public industry reports (different institutions have different scopes, some bundling medications, NRT, and services, others narrower). Domestic digital smoking cessation services are also emerging: public reports mention apps/services like "JieYanJunTuan" and "WuYanRenSheng," with medical platforms like Yiling laying out online consultation services. Some materials indicate that related service users reached 2 million in 2024 with a paid conversion rate of about 18% (media reports, I treat this as a reference range, not a precise KPI). On the oral side, consumer-grade oral care segments like probiotics grew from about 4.9 billion to about 17.8 billion yuan from 2018–2023 (very high compound growth rate), indicating that the habit of "paying for fresh breath, gums, and microbiome" is already forming.

2. The Conversion Logic I Tested Myself (Empirical Data, Not Industry Standard)

In January–February 2025, I conducted a small-sample test in WeChat private domain (totaling about 860 people added via WeChat, primarily from comments under short videos about "smoking/periodontal disease/bad breath"):

Personal view: The core of willingness to pay in this track is not "selling courses," but selling certainty—how to get through tonight's craving, whether to pause quitting when gums bleed, the priority of oral care in the first three months of quitting. Unit price can be low, but repurchase and referral will be healthier than general knowledge payment.

3. Payment Barriers Are Almost All "Trust + Compliance," Not "Lack of Money"

Real obstacles I've encountered:

Willingness to pay ranking (my empirical judgment):

"Solving bad breath/gum embarrassment" > "Reducing long-term disease risk education" > "Success-story quit-smoking inspiration."

Content topics should be scheduled according to this ranking, not according to what you yourself feel like writing.

III. Competitive Landscape: Red Ocean in "General Quit Smoking" and "General Oral Health," Blue Ocean in the Intersection and Delivery

1. Pure Quit Smoking Content: Crowded, Homogeneous, Hard to Monetize

Open any short-video platform and search "quit smoking." The first two screens are mostly: withdrawal reactions, running to quit smoking, smoking harm videos, check-in motivation. Extremely low information increment. Top accounts rely on emotion and persona; mid-tier accounts copy each other. Advertisers are either highly regulated substitutes or low-quality health supplements, and content accounts are easily dragged into compliance minefields.

After regulatory tightening in the e-cigarette and novel tobacco track, domestic compliant sales experienced significant contraction (industry analyses estimate a sharp decline in domestic sales from 2021–2023), brands are more cautious, and content-driven sales space is squeezed. If you can only write "good ways to quit smoking," it's hard to establish differentiated pricing power.

2. Pure Oral Content: High Professional Barriers, But Smoker Entry Points Often Wasted

Dental institutions' self-media is strong in implants, orthodontics, and pediatric dentistry cases. Smoker-related content is often brushed over with "please quit smoking," without managing the quitting process as a complete user journey. The result is: dentists get surgical patients, content creators don't get long-term relationships.

The gap in the cross track is:

You are not a dentist, nor do you pretend to be; you are a companion and information filter for "people who are seriously considering quitting due to oral pressure."

3. Is a 2–3 Year Window Enough? My Judgment: Enough for Those Who "Build a Business," Not Enough for Those Who "Just Want a Viral Hit"

Three reasons:

Things I deliberately avoid doing: Chasing every trending quit-smoking folk remedy; competing with medical accounts on surgical cases; promising "quit in X days" for follower growth. These will all backfire on trust within six months, and trust is the only truly valuable asset in this track.

IV. If the Goal Is Stable Profits in 2–3 Years, Here's How I Would Pace It

Below is the rhythm I would execute myself and also recommend to fellow entrepreneurs in the same track (empirical plan, not a standard answer):

Months 0–3: Only Validation, No Brand Illusions

Months 4–12: Make Delivery Replicable

Months 13–36: Stable Profits Come from "Relationship Assets"

V. Why I Still Bet on This Track (Personal Conclusion)

Many people ask me: the health track is so competitive, why still choose quitting smoking?

Because quitting alone is too preachy, oral health alone is too medical, and their intersection falls exactly on "high-frequency embarrassment + real money + content-friendly." Users aren't here to review your worldview; they're here to solve the taste in their mouth, the blood from their gums, the cold war at home, and the dentist's quote.

Demand side: 300 million smokers and about 100 million with quit intentions, combined with periodontal disease and bad breath as "mirror-reminding problems," content doesn't need hard education.

Payment side: They're already paying for cigarettes and dental work; you're selling certainty and companionship on a shorter path, not yet another piece of correct nonsense.

Competition side: General tracks are crowded, but the intersection + delivery still has space; 2–3 years is enough to thicken your SOP and reputation, but not enough to coast on recycled headlines.

If I could leave only one sentence for those about to enter:

Don't follow the trend of "quit smoking success stories." Go build a "long-term toolkit for people who have to take tobacco seriously because of oral problems." Profits will come a bit slower, but once they appear, they often last longer than pure traffic businesses.

*The macro data in this article comes from public reports and industry materials (such as the National Health Commission's adult tobacco survey notifications, smoking cessation willingness study references, WHO oral health facts, oral epidemiology survey public results, digital smoking cessation service and oral care segment market media/research reports, etc.). The small-scale placement and private domain conversion figures are the author's own test records, for reference only, and do not constitute investment or medical advice. For oral diseases and tobacco dependence, please rely on licensed physician diagnosis and formal smoking cessation intervention.*