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Show, Don't Tell

🤫 Show, Don't Tell #63 - Your champion can't sell an integration with a PDF


Read Time: 3.8 minutes

Welcome to our 63rd edition of Show, Don't Tell. A newsletter to help you build REMARKABLE interactive demos...3 tips at a time.

This week we're:

  1. Build a demo for every integration in the stack
  2. Let prospects answer “who am I” and “why am I here”
  3. Show you the right way to add videos to your clickable demos

Let's get after it...

Supported By:

  • Navattic is our favorite interactive demo platform ❤️
  • It's easy to build demos of your product, that feel like the real thing
  • With HTML screen captures, easy editing, lots of sharing options, and powerful analytics
  • ​Try building your first demo for free!​
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Tip #1: Integrations Go Beyond a Technical Doc

Every deal eventually lands on IT's desk. But before it does, your champion needs to know some version of: "how does this fit into what we already have?"

Most companies hand over a PDF or a technical doc and hope for the best. CaseStatus has something even better.

From their homepage, you can click into individual integration pages. Each page has its own demo showing exactly how that integration works. Then they pulled all of those demos into their demo center so everything lives in one place.

Technical docs are great when the deal is in negotiation and IT is doing their thing. But your champion needs something that makes the integration real before anyone has to read a spec.

Jason and I have been recommending integration demos to clients for a while. And we’re making that same recommendation to you.

​→ See how CaseStatus made integrations a hands-on experience​

Tip #2: Help Prospects Sort Themselves Out

Here's a problem that doesn't get talked about enough. Two demos in a center? Easy. Eight demos? Now you've got a menu with too many options and most buyers will either guess or bail.

That’s why if you need to check out Homebot.

At the top of their demo center is two filters. "I'm a..." with three role options. "Looking to..." with three goal options. Pick one of each and the right demos surface. Everything else steps back.

It's technically a filter. But it doesn't feel like one. I kind of feel like the page is talking to me.

We talked about SimplePractice's question-based opening CTA back in Edition #58. It’s thisidea that framing something as a question gets buyers bought-in before anything happens. Homebot applied that same instinct to the whole demo center. Before a prospect has watched a single slide, they've already told you who they are and what they need.

Depending on how they set up their analytics, that could be a warm lead you didn't have to work for.

​→ See how Homebot makes prospects self-identify​

Tip #3: Know When to Entertain and When to Teach

We've been fans of mixing video into interactive demos since Edition #1. But most demos are still playing it safe.

Either the whole thing is video with nothing to interact with, or there's one intro video and then it's a standard click-through tour the rest of the way.

Playable figured out the balance and it's kind of hard to explain until you see it.

They open with short videos of someone using the product. Then a few static interactive steps so your brain can catch up. Then a longer video of someone playing an actual game on their platform. Then back to interactive click-throughs.

It just keeps going like that. And it works because those two modes ask completely different things of you.

  • Video is fun, it's easy, your brain goes on a little vacation
  • Static steps slow things down and make you pay attention

Alternate between them and you never check out, but you never feel lectured at either.

Remember Elation from Edition #60, who used motion at just the right moments to pull you back in mid-demo? Playable took that idea and built a whole tour around it. At some point you genuinely forget you're watching a demo.

And that's the real goal, isn’t it?

​→ See the tour that keeps both sides of your brain happy​

Multi-flow demos, now on easy mode.

Navattic recently launched their new demo builder and it’s a MAJOR upgrade to the way we build and edit demos.

One of our favorite features: editing multiple demo flows from one screen 🔥

Until now, if you had a demo with multiple flows, you needed to edit each flow separately — bouncing back and forth between different editor screens. That was, frankly, a pain.

Not anymore!

Steps, Captures, Flows, Checklists, Mobile settings, and Themes are now accessible from a single building view.

Now, you can see all of your flows in collapsable containers in the left sidebar of the demo builder. From there, you can edit any step, create new flows, or move steps between flows.

When it comes to building complex, multi-flow demos, every workflow improvement makes a big difference. And this one doesn’t disappoint.

If you haven’t built your first demo on Navattic’s new demo builder, go check it out now!

​​→ Check out Navattic’s new demo builder​

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Ask the Dash Bros 🎙️

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.

​→ Register now - It's 100% Free​

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So that’s it. Our 63rd 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.

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​
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Show, Don't Tell

Learn how to create remarkable interactive demos that make your SaaS product easy to understand and buy. 3 practical tips and examples every Tuesday.

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