Jason's been chewing on an old copywriting rule lately. The only job of a sentence is to get you to read the next one. He's been trying it on demo steps, one tooltip at a time.
Soldo already built a whole tour this way.
Every step does its job, then ends with a line pointing at the next one:
"Next, let's see what happens when they use their card."
"Now let's see how spend is documented in the moment."
"Let's move to what this means for Finance at month-end."
You never hit Next wondering what's coming. You hit Next because you want to see it.
And they carry it past the end of each chapter, too. When one wraps, it hands you to the next ("Ready to see how it connects to day-to-day employee spend?").
Four tours get chained together that way, and the first one even puts Book a demo right next to Continue tour.
Tip #2: Give Directions Without Stopping the Story
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If you've read more than two editions of this newsletter, you know we won't shut up about storytelling. Give the buyer a character, a problem, a reason to care.
Now, Iβve had an issue with interactive demos for years.
The story and the instructions end up fighting over the same tooltip... and one of them always loses.
Checkr found a way where neither loses. At the end of their small business demo, you can preview the candidate experience (inside an iPad, which is a fun touch). Their tooltips are split into two columns. One side tells the story. The other side tells you what to do, and every instruction gets a little custom checkbox icon, probably a nod to the green dot in their real app.
It's basically our usual storytelling advice with the walkthrough bolted right on. We LOVE it.
Quick disclosure: we build on Navattic every day, so take our excitement with a genuine heap of salt.
Navattic just launched Agents. And instead of writing a paragraph about what an AI agent is, the product page just hands you one.
Hit Begin demo and you're on what looks like a video call. There's a presenter on camera, a chat window, slides on the left, a Push to talk button and a little red hang-up button. Book a demo sits in the corner the whole time.
Everybody already knows how a video call works (including how to leave one). So there's nothing to figure out before you start asking questions.
Remember when an AI avatar fooled Navattic's own team back in Edition #84? Now they've built one you can talk back to.
Forget chocolate. This advent calendar has something way better inside: a free 30-minute workshop every weekday!
Each weekday, from Nov 2β25, 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.
Youβll 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. And if you can't attend live, all sessions are recorded so you can watch later.
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.