The Before and After Grid

The before and after grid is a simple system designed by Ryan Deiss to help content writers visualize the buyer’s emotional journey. The three columns of the grid: Angle, Before, and After, help to build the customer story from beginning to end. Each row of the grid is designed to bring you one level deeper into the desires of your target customer. It will be helpful to keep this model in mind visually as we work through each level.

Trick 1: Features and Benefits

The easiest way to begin the content writing process is to focus on features and benefits.  Every product or service that is worth something does one of two things. It either takes away a pain or adds something of quality. To get at this we need to answer two questions: What do your customers have before that they no longer have after? and What do your customers have after that they didn’t have before?

Trick 2: The Emotional Shift

After defining your features and benefits, it’s time to move on to the emotional shift. In this stage you’ll begin to read through product reviews and talk with customers and users. The goal is to find out what they feel about your product or service and why they feel that way. As you assemble perspectives from your customers you’ll be able to look for deeper emotions that are actually driving sales of your product. 

Trick 3: A Day in the Life

Once you know who your customers are and why your product or service appeals to them it’s time to find where your product fits into the daily life of prospective customers. What do your perspective customers do daily that could be improved by your product or service?

To do this Ryan Deiss recommends telling a real life story that relates to your client. His example is the story of marketing a landscape company that focuses on giving people back their Saturdays rather than on having a greener lawn.

Trick 4: Status Symbols

“A Soldier will fight long and hard for a piece of colored ribbon” -Napoleon [citation]

Ryan recommends providing certifications or other tangible “ribbons” to customers to help in achieving this level of engagement. By giving the consumer something tangible you solidify to themselves and others that their status has changed. The same can be true of providing merits within a business such as employee of the month, a title promotion, or a company gift. The chance for recognition motivates action.

One way that we have often seen this done in recent marketing practices is rewarding people for providing personal information in exchange for “prizes” such as ebooks, checklists, or discounts. While not always an outward facing display like a certification, smaller prizes can be equally rewarding and bring participants back for more.

Trick 5: Fight the Bad Guy

Ryan’s final trick is to provide the reader with a choice between “good” and “evil”. Are your customers trying to get more time back? Are your competitor’s products negatively affecting their chances for success? By helping frame the choosing your product or services as the good fighting the bad guy you make the choice to choose you easier.

Trick 6: Summarize it All

When you’re all done working through the before and after grid, it’s time to write your summary statement. This is a statement that will help drive your marketing efforts focusing on transitioning prospective clients from a position of “problem aware” to “solution aware.”

Ryan’s trick for creating a powerful summary statement with your team is to use sticky notes. Have each member write down as many elements as they can for each box of the before and after grid. Once all the proposed solutions have been gathered, review them with your team and select which ones to focus on. From here you will be able to develop headlines, build hooks, create hashtags, and drive the impact of your organization.

Bonus: Avoid These Myths

Two myths to avoid when working on your content are 1) The belief that it doesn’t matter because they are just words and 2) Only those born with the gift can write good content. At either extreme you risk losing opportunities for impactful storytelling. Through education, practice, and maybe a bit of coaching almost anyone can improve.

Next Steps With Visten

Have you learned something today? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

At Visten Creative we seek to help you unlock your storytelling potential.  If you are interested in talking through the before and after grid or exploring marketing opportunities more broadly, the Visten Creative team is available to chat. 

Today’s Source

Today’s tricks come primarily from the educational library of Drift Insider with little twist from our Visten Creative team. In “The Before & After Grid: 20 Minutes to Boost Your Sales & Marketing Copy”, Ryan Deiss & Dave Gerhardt from Drift explain how by focusing on the customer’s story arc can define your marketing strategy.