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Welcome to our 43rd edition of Show, Don't Tell. A newsletter to help you build REMARKABLE interactive demos...3 tips at a time.

This week we:

1. Get a little blurry
2. Take you to the (side) bar
3. Make thumbnails cool again

Let's get after it...

Supported By: We are Navattic fanatics. We had the idea for this newsletter after hundreds of hours spent building Navattic demos for our past companies and current clients. We love making remarkable interactive demos, and want to share helpful tips and examples so you can too. A huge thanks to Navattic for helping make this a reality. If you want to create a better experience for your buyers, go check them out. They have a free plan you can start using today! → Try Navattic

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Tip #1 - Just Blur the Messy Parts

Demo environments are notoriously messy. Especially if you have sensitive data in them.

Rings built a demo just to remind us that you can always blur it instead.

Not only does this hide the sensitive stuff you can't show, but it also hides the noise that doesn't matter. Less visual clutter means prospects can actually focus on what you're trying to show them.

Add this to your bag of tricks because:

• you won’t spend weeks building a pristine demo environment
• you’ll reduce cognitive load for your prospects

Sometimes the fastest path to a good demo isn't perfection, it's strategic blurring.

→ See how Rings blurred their way into our newsletter

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Tip #2 - Put Your Side Quests in the Sidebar

Choose-your-own-adventure demos are having a moment. We seen this all the way back to Wise in Edition #10 with their six-pathway demo multiverse.

But here's the question nobody talks about: where do you put the navigation?

Huzzle put all their demos in a persistent sidebar so you can jump between tours without ever losing sight of the product. No overlays. No popup menus.

There’s a few ways you can add these checklist, but this one stood out quite a bit.

→ Check out Huzzle's sidebar setup

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Tip #3 - Frame Your Thumbnails Around Jobs, Not Features

Most demo centers label their tours with feature names. "Partner Portal." "Email Builder." Cool, but what am I supposed to do with that?

Active Campaign went a different route. Their thumbnails say things like "Instantly connect your favorite apps" and "Achieve 99% email deliverability rates." It's not about what the feature is called – it's about what you're trying to accomplish.

We’ll be suggesting this to clients because:

• prospects think in problems, not feature names
• it answers "why should I care?" before they even click

Remember how Appcues crushed their custom thumbnails last week? Can’t wait to see more of these in the next few months.

→ See how Active Campaign did their thumbnails

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Reps Can Send Demos Without Leaving Their Email 📩 Did you know — Navattic integrates with email platforms like Outlook, Outreach, Gmail, Apollo, Salesforce, and Salesloft? Now, your sellers can easily send personalized Navattic demos in every outbound or follow-up email. They also get real-time activity tracking so they can know when their demos are viewed, by who, and how long. No more jumping between tools to find the right demo or hoping blindly that prospects are using them. With Launchpad, your reps can send customized, trackable demos to each buyer without having to leave their email editor! ​ ​→ Learn more about our Launchpad email integrations

Don’t have time to build remarkable Navattic demos? We do. DemoDash is an agency 100% focused on making interactive demos your top product marketing asset. We’ll map your story, build your tours, and help you measure the impact. → Learn more at demodash.agency

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So that’s it. Our 41st edition of Show, Don’t Tell.

3 useful tips to help you build remarkable interactive demos.

Tune in next Tuesday for more advice from DemoDash.

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P.S.

If you know anyone else who would love these tips, please consider sending them this edition so they can subscribe 🙏
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Jason and Eric​
​Say hi on LinkedIn!