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Show, Don't Tell

🤫 Show, Don't Tell #70 - This demo center is too good to miss


Read Time: 3.6 minutes

Welcome to our 70th edition of Show, Don't Tell. A newsletter to help you build REMARKABLE interactive demos...3 tips at a time.

This week, we're using one demo center to show you:

  1. Thumbnails that make anyone stop scrolling
  2. A "start here" strategy that orients your buyers​
  3. How to get the next demo started before anyone wants to leave

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: Ditch the Stock Photos

In our opinion, your thumbnail has one job: make someone want to click.

But most of the ones we see are either a product screenshot, or a generic stock photo of someone at a laptop. After a while your brain stops seeing them.

A product screenshot says "here's the product." A person inside the product says "here's what this looks like for someone like you." BloomReach figured out you can have both at the same time.

Their thumbnails combine product graphics with real people that feel like they belong in the product itself. It catches your eye in a way that screenshots aren't, and way less awkward than a stock photo pretending to represent… well… anything.

We've praised thumbnails before. Appcues had fully custom ones in Edition #42, and Active Campaign wrote outcome-focused labels in Edition #43. BloomReach adds a new layer: putting the human into the visual itself, not just the copy.

If your thumbnails are currently screenshots with text on top, this is worth a conversation with your designer.

​→ See BloomReach's thumbnail approach​

Tip #2: Give Them a Front Door

Landing on a demo center with eight options and no guidance is a lot. You're not sure where to start, so you pick something at random… or you leave.

Your demo center might have organized the tours. It just isn’t helping buyers find the right one.

BloomReach solved this with two sections.

  • "Start here" at the top. It gives one recommended starting point into the product.
  • Then "continue with these favorites" below it. One place to begin, more to explore after.

Giving someone a front door, then showing them the rest of the house, is a lot easier to navigate than showing them all the rooms at once.

We've seen Rally UXR use clean layout hierarchy in Edition #38, and Adaptive Security keep their center tight in Edition #41. BloomReach adds something both were missing: an explicit "this is where you should start" moment.

​→ See how BloomReach guides visitors in​

Tip #3: Treat Each Demo Like Content

You click a thumbnail. The tour opens. You finish. And then… nothing. No context about what you just saw, no clear next step, and definitely no indication there's more to explore.

BloomReach gives each demo its own dedicated landing page. Before you start, there's copy explaining what the tour covers. And at the bottom, after you've finished, there's a "Discover More Tours" section, which acts a mini resource center built right into the page.

That last part is the best part. Instead of ending with a CTA to book a meeting, they hand you three more reasons to stay. The demo becomes a content experience with a beginning, a middle, and a natural continuation… instead of a dead end with a calendar link.

If people are leaving your demo center after one tour, this is probably why.

​→ Explore BloomReach's demo pages​

One capture library, available for every demo

If you’ve built multiple demos in Navattic, you’ve 100% experienced the challenge of managing multiple capture collections.

Like when you create a new demo and need to duplicate captures from one demo to the next. Or you waste time capturing screens that have already been captured!

NO MORE!

With Workspace Captures, you can now easily manage your screen captures at a Workspace level and re-use them across multiple demos.

So you can focus on getting the perfect screen capture every time and sleep easy knowing that you’ll never need to capture it again.

The easiest way to get started with this feature is to promote your existing Capture collections. Just follow the instructions in the image above, and you can add any existing collection of captures to your workspace collection.

This feature is in beta for Growth and Enterprise customers, ask your Navattic CSM to get access.

​→ Here’s a quick interactive demo showing you how it works​

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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, May 27th at 12PM ET.

​→ Register now - It's 100% Free​

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So that’s it. Our 70th 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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Say hi on LinkedIn!

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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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