If your demo is good enough, your prospects will hit a moment where they “get it” and are ready to move forward.
But where's the button?
Oops… it's parked at the very end of the demo, after the fourteenth step.
But Mixpanel has a fix. They open with a five-step welcome tour. And at the end of those five steps, two buttons: Sign up for free or Continue the tour.
Take the second one and the checklist opens up. Here’s where things get interesting ⬇️
If you click into Events, that flow is short too. Six, seven steps at most. And at the end of THAT one, same two buttons. If you’re still not ready, you land back on the checklist, ready to pick the next one.
Every flow is short and ends in with two doors.
Jason and I like this because:
The exit shows up every few minutes, wherever the buyer happens to get interested.
They have removed all dead ends. You either leave or you're back at the checklist.
We praised Wise last week for opening with a five-stop highlight reel. Mixpanel runs the same kind of opener and then puts a door at the end of it.
Quick disclosure: AppFolio is a client and we built these. Jason put it on the list anyway, so blame him 😉.
If you open any of their four demos, you meet the same woman. Her name is Jordan, a regional property manager, and she is having a week.
In the Assistant tour, her Monday starts the way it always does… wondering how things are going across her properties. In Flows, it's peak leasing season and she's answering the same pet policy question for what feels like the thousandth time. In the maintenance demo she's got a resident, Marcus, with a clogged sink and a work order that doesn't match the problem. In Resident Onboarding she's moving a new resident, Carly, into her apartment.
Four demos, one protagonist, with new residents rotating through as the second character.
Why? Because every good story needs a familiar character.
Have you ever seen a webpage more confident than the ‘Book a Demo’ page?
It assumes everybody who lands there is ready to talk to a person. But a good number of them aren't. The only reason they clicked was because it was the only button that looked like it led to the product.
Vertice put a second option right there on the page. Sitting next to the demo request form:
Not ready for a demo yet? Take a self-guided tour of our platform below.
That line has been on that page since early 2025. A year and a half of redesigns, new campaigns, new hires, and somebody inevitably deciding to clean up the demo page. But it's still sitting there.
Lots of teams ship a self-guided tour, stare at pipeline number for 3 months, then pull it. Keeping one in the highest-intent spot on your site for that long tells us something is working.
Forget chocolate. This advent calendar has something way better inside: a free 30-minute workshop every weekday!
Each weekday, from Nov 2–25, the Navattic team (plus a few surprise guests) will show you how to run your demo program from Claude or ChatGPT using the Navattic MCP.
You’ll script and build demos, bulk-edit copy, refresh stale steps after a launch, and ask your analytics questions in plain English, all without leaving your LLM.
That adds up to 17 expert-led sessions with live Q&A and a gift every day, all free. Miss one? Just catch it next week.
A live, FREE coaching session to help you build better interactive demos (and make them your top marketing asset.)
In these 45-minute coaching sessions, Eric and Jason answer your questions about demo strategy, distribution, sales enablement, and any other challenges you're facing with interactive demos.
The next session is Wednesday, October 28th at 12PM ET.