Navattic introduced checklist demos a while back. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, they’re the ones where you package multiple demos into one URL and let people choose their own adventure.
Atlan and Bloomerang loved them so much they asked their dev teams to build custom versions for their websites.
You can ask Jason if you don’t believe me, but I was freaking out on our call when I first saw them. Took us a minute to even realize they were custom because they match the brand so well.
And like I said, the first impression is AWESOME. You should consider it a victory anytime you can look different than 99.9% of every demos out there.
Shout out to their web team because they perform even better than they look. No lag…no waiting for the next thing to load. And you don’t need us to tell you that when something loads fast, people will keep clicking instead of bouncing.
Pretty cool way to take a feature and put your own twist on it.
Tip #2: Stop Hiding Demos From Your Blog (and other) Content
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Product pages are nice. Demo centers are great. But there's a ton of other places demos can…and should…live.
We’re a big fan of Wiz because they put their demos everywhere, especially in blog articles.
Imagine you’re trying to learn about "What is Open Policy Agent (OPA)?" so you click on a blog post. Before you finish your first scroll, you hit a beautiful demo embed.
Now, instead of just reading about the concept…you can actually see the product in action.
This works for a couple reasons:
it lets people connect the dots visually before diving into the density of the blog
it's a great off-ramp for casual readers who just want a quick answer instead of a deep dive
Plus, once you've got the embed template, you can drop different demos into any piece of content without asking the dev team for help.
So remember…put your demos everywhere. And we mean everywhere.
When you have a product with a lot to look at, there’s well…a lot to look at. And this matters more than you might think.
When people land on a busy interface for the first time, it gets overwhelming. Too many things competing for attention means nothing gets attention.
And if your prospect is spending mental energy trying to figure out where to look, they're not spending it falling in love with your product.
AlertMedia handles this by using shadows with their tooltips. When they're explaining something, everything else gets dimmed and falls to the backdrop.
This little trick also prevents people from getting distracted or overwhelmed by some random button in the corner.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is tell prospects where NOT to look.
How often are you sharing interactive demos during your sales cycle?
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Here's a common misconception: if a prospect is active in your sales cycle, you should only show them the product on a live demo call.
However, the truth is actually the complete opposite.
In fact, Navattic's State of Demo Automation Report shows thatdeals with two to three automated demo touches had a 72% win rate compared to a 59% win rate on deals that had zero automated demo touches.
Instead of thinking that your interactive demo competes in some way with your live sales demo, think of it more as a value add and a way to get in front of buying committee members that never attend your live demo call.
By making it easier for people to explore your product on their own time and share demos across their company, you actually enable your champions to help sell your product.
All this data comes from Navattic's State of Demo Automation Report, where they analyzed 40k+ demos and surveyed 70+ SEs to discover how demo automation is impacting sales cycles, and what best practices make a real difference.
If you want more best practices like this and some pretty compelling stats to help you build a case for demo automation, check out the report below.
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, Apr 22nd at 12PM ET.