In the process of cross-border e-commerce copywriting, demand research is the preliminary preparation for writing, the collection and organization of copywriting materials, and the process of copywriters reflecting marketing thinking. Cross-border e-commerce copywriting serves marketing, so research to meet the needs of copywriting is an indispensable part of cross-border e-commerce copywriting. Its research work includes market analysis, target population analysis, and competitor analysis.
Market analysis is to analyze the market where the product is launched or the market for the copywriting, including the size, characteristics, and nature of the market. Most cross-border e-commerce copywriting is created based on these factors. These factors are closely related to the maturity of the market. The maturity of the market indicates how many similar products there are in the market before the product is launched. The more similar products there are, the more competitors there are, and the more mature the market where the product is located. Market maturity can be divided as follows.
(I) Native market
The native market is the initial stage of market maturity. At this stage, there are no other similar products on the market, that is, there are no competitors. This is equivalent to a product that is very unknown to the audience. At this time, the copywriting needs to fully display the content of the product and persuade consumers to buy it. This is the same as the third stage of consumer awareness.
(II) Moderately mature market
The moderately mature market is the second stage of market maturity. At this stage, there may be some similar products on the market, and consumers are also aware of those products. In this state, before writing the copywriting, you should observe what your competitors are doing and what methods they are using. You need to understand how they describe the product, from which angle they write, and what marketing methods they use. Then, further optimize the competitor’s strategy. For example, in the women’s clothing market, where e-commerce competition is the hottest, most people would think that this is a very mature market with few opportunities. In fact, as online shopping becomes increasingly mature and young people become the main consumers of e-commerce, people tend to overlook some sub-segments, such as middle-aged and elderly women’s clothing, plus-size women’s clothing, etc., and “new” is always the keyword in this industry.
(III) Severely mature market
The severely mature market is the third stage of market maturity. At this stage, there are many similar products on the market, commonly known as the “standard product market”, and it is difficult for consumers to discover new products. However, this market will always have an audience, and the market will replace the old with the new. After the technical level has been improved and updated, the original product will be updated. In this case, new brands or products are likely to appear, but the audience in this market environment is very dependent on existing brands. Therefore, when writing copy for such products, it is important to pay attention to highlighting the influence of the brand and increasing the audience’s trust.
Many times, the market faced by copywriting is a more mature market. At this time, the requirements for copywriting are higher than those of the native market. Therefore, it is necessary to design competitive copywriting, mostly combining market characteristics, starting from the products of competitors in the same industry, and refining the selling points of their own products. The more in-depth the market analysis, the more information you get, the more you understand the product, and the better you can write excellent copywriting. If you don’t understand the market where the product is located and the competitors, it will be difficult to make the copywriting stand out among many competitors. For example, home appliances in cross-border e-commerce is a very mature market, because there are not many well-known brands, but the home appliances of cross-border consumers will be updated over time. At the same time, with the improvement and update of technology level, new brands or products may also appear.