profile

Show, Don't Tell

🤫 Show, Don't Tell #65 - Don't assume they will finish your demo


Read Time: 3.9 minutes

Welcome to our 65th 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 an exit for the buyer who's done and the one who isn't
  2. Make your feature feel like the real thing
  3. Give your CTA some great copy

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!

Tip #1: Cover Both Exits

Most demos are built with one assumption baked in: the buyer will start at step one and finish at the end.

But that's not how people actually behave.

DailyPay thought about what happens at both ends of that experience. Midway through their demo, if a buyer has seen enough and wants out, there's an X in the top right of every tooltip and modal. And at the end, instead of a back button that takes you one step in the wrong direction, they give you a restart .

It sounds small but it tells the buyer something. You're in control.

We've talked about off-ramps a lot, like Crunchr in Edition #60, or Mixpanel back in Edition #11. Those are about giving buyers a conversion option mid-demo. Here’s another one for your toolkit.

→ See how DailyPay handles both ends of the demo

Tip #2: Make the Feature Feel Real

We featured Encircle back in Edition #63. That tip was about giving buyers the right starting point. This one is about what happens once you're inside.

Their mobile demo has a wow moment you have to see.

It's a 360-degree photo feature the kind their product uses to document home restoration jobs, eliminate blind spots, and deliver what they call no-questions-asked coverage. The visual is one thing. But the way it's built into the demo makes you feel like you're actually holding the phone.

That's a hard thing to pull off in an interactive demo and most people don't even try. They settle for a screenshot of the feature and a tooltip explaining what it does. Encircle let the feature do the talking.

If your product has a moment that's genuinely hard to describe in words… build the demo around that moment.

→ See the 360 feature that made us stop scrolling

Tip #3: Hook ‘Em With a Button

"Take a Guided Tour" is a fine CTA. We've seen it a thousand times. It does the job.

But Splunk added two lines of subcopy underneath their tour CTA that makes you want to click it.

"Got 5 minutes?" works because of something called the foot-in-the-door effect. When you ask someone for something small and specific, they're far more likely to say yes than if you make a vague or open-ended ask. Five minutes is concrete. The buyer can calculate it. They know exactly what they're agreeing to, which makes agreeing feel safe.

Compare that to "Take a Tour" with no time context. That ends up being an open commitment, and nobody likes those.

Then right below, they hit you with "Get a quick look at how it works.” It's lowering the stakes of the experience itself.

The word "quick" reinforces the five minutes, and it signals that nobody is going to ambush you with a sales conversation at the end. It's the equivalent of saying "no pressure."

Together, those two lines give you a reason to click the button.

→ See the subcopy and tell us how you feel about it


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

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

So that’s it. Our 65th 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 🙏

Jason and Eric
Say hi on LinkedIn!

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.

Share this page