From Pop Industry to Freelance Writing: How Profits Are Made

The idea that businesses expand by taking advantages of consumers' weaknesses is obvious to most people. By concentrating on the areas that the consumers are susceptible, many businesses annually make sales based on same type of audience over and over again.

An example is the pop music industry. Those categorized under "Pop" always have a set target: young children and teenagers, especially those who watch Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. To target these audiences, the pop music industry tends to produce songs that are catchy and easy to sing-along such as those by Hillary Duff and Miley Cyrus. They are not necessarily about producing quality music, but more of those that can catch the minds of youngsters. Their success thrives because even though children of one decade will grow out of these pop music, they will be replaced by another set of children from the next decade, and this cycle repeats. So, by focusing on this weakness of children, the pop industry thrives years after years. Same argument can be said about McDonald's Happy Meal toys.

But, it would be foolish to argue that all businesses become prosperous by exploiting the weaknesses of the consumers. In other cases, they actually respond to the needs, not the weaknesses, of the consumers in order to make money. A great example is the online writing industry, collectively known as "freelance writing."

The freelance writing industry works by producing quality topics in the areas that the consumers usually search in the Google. The items that the consumers search are not weaknesses because they change from a year to a year, a month to a month, and even a day to a day! The freelance writing industry realizes that when people sit down on their chairs and search in Google, they expect to find answers to their questions in all kinds of areas. So, to meet this target, the successful industry implements quality writing to bring consumers to read their articles. Quality is essential here because with so many websites out in the internet nowadays, poorly written articles will not only produce few visitors, but more importantly, those who are ephemeral and not play a role in generating a significant level of profits.

So, how do businesses determine whether they should exploit the weaknesses of the consumers or adhere to the quality more? What condition or situation sets two types of business policies apart?

The answer lies in the size of market. Businesses in the industries of big and guaranteed markets often exploit the consumers' weaknesses, as described in the case of pop music industry. The big and guaranteed markets usually have limited number of major companies that are successful. Such markets include music, selected types of automobiles, and computers. Because the market is big, the presence of consumers is guaranteed. Hence, the success comes to the business that can best target the weaknesses of consumers and produce largest amount of sales.

On the other hand, small and fickle markets demand quality. As seen in the case of freelance writing industry, there are some cases in which there are many small businesses trying to gain the attention of selected number of consumers. In these types of businesses, the survival requires finding what the consumer needs and delivering them in the prompt manner. That is why even though many people try to make money from online affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates, only few people consistently make living out of it. The success depends on addressing the consumers' needs since so-called "weaknesses" do not really produce constant level of profits.