Copywriters Vs Excel Sheets

The two have never liked each other. You see, a copywriter is a being who loves imagining scenarios, crafting stories, and writing persuasive copy. On the other hand, excel sheets churn out hard core facts — nothing imaginative, just straight-up data.

Ask any writer what they dread the most and “looking at excel sheets” is what most of them might respond. To put things into perspective, excel sheets for us is like sitting in a traffic jam knowing you’re not going to move for an hour or standing in a long queue at a bank that’s about to have a lunch break or visiting a doctor without an appointment and knowing you are the 30th patient in the waiting list — suddenly a running nose is not the biggest point of bother. In short, excel sheets are BORING.

Why should we even look at those rows and columns?

Fellow writers, let’s face the harsh reality though. In this day and age, where startups are burning billions, valuations and profitability rarely complement each other, it’s time we take data a little seriously. Let me give you an example — Gameskraft.

We have thrived because of data. The leadership here goes through countless excel sheets before taking a decision. This has been our mantra of success. No rash decisions, no running after imaginative numbers, being realistic and patient. A copywriter of today must look at data as a valuable asset. Just learn to decipher it and you will be able to see some valuable insights.

Decipher the stories it wants to tell as it will empower you to connect with your audience better.

Like “har ghar kuch kehta hai”, har excel sheet bhi kuch kehti hai

Let’s take a small example of push notifications (PNs). Brands use PNs to retain users and remind them of their product offerings. It is that little notification that usually comes on top of your smartphone. But, no matter how interesting you make them, if the user is not taking any action based on them, it’s of no use. Every writer is a fan of PNs from Zomato, Swiggy, and Dunzo, but they only work for a certain set of audience. If your audience resides in tier 2 or tier 3 cities, those notifications won’t make sense to them at all. To be fair, this is the reason these brands are yet to penetrate a large portion of tier 3 cities — it is not their audience.

Here’s a breakdown of how we leveraged data to improve the CTR of our PNs for RummyCulture:

Headline matters

• We saw certain words like “rewards” and “free” worked well for us.
• Mentioning a “number” in the headline itself was giving us better CTRs.

Emojis are essential

• At least one emoji needs to be there in our PNs.
• Doesn’t matter if it fits the context perfectly or not, emojis add colours to the headlines and make them stand out.

Keep it short

• The shorter we kept the headlines, the better it got. 15–25 characters was the golden spot.

Keep it fresh

• No matter how good the CTR of a PN is, it will decay over time. We need to keep refreshing the content every week.

Use excel sheets to your advantage. Consider it as the complimentary cookie you get in a cafe. It is not the main focus but clearly makes your coffee or tea taste better. But, don’t make data the central theme of your ideas. Use data as a part of your story and not the plot of it.