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Show, Don't Tell

🤫 Show, Don't Tell #79 - Gate them after they're hooked, not before


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Welcome to our 79th edition of Show, Don't Tell. A newsletter to help you build REMARKABLE interactive demos...3 tips at a time.

This week is all about:

  1. letting buyers pick how they want to watch
  2. a form you can see the product through
  3. the gate that waits until you're already hooked

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: Let the Tile Do the Choosing

We just watched Atlan hand buyers a "watch it or run it" choice at the front door (Edition #77). Turns out you can push that choice even earlier… onto the demo center itself.

Insider One puts two buttons right on each tile: "Launch tour" or "watch the video." And when it's a video, they tell you the length "2-minute video," "3-minute video." So before you commit to anything, you know exactly what you're getting into and how long it'll take.

Jason and I LOVE (yes all caps) this because:

  • Skimmers grab the short video, divers launch the full tour so both get served
  • Naming the runtime ("2 min") kills the "how long is this going to take me" hesitation

See Insider One's choose-your-own tiles

Tip #2: Blur It, Don't Hide It

My preference is ‘don’t gate your demos.’

But if you have to, let’s put some energy behind it. For example, think of the plain form introduction. When there's nothing behind it, you're asking people to buy-in without any visual exposure to the product.

“Fill this out and trust me, it's good.”

CaptivateIQ blurs instead. You hit the opening CTA and the real product is sitting right there behind the form, just blurred just enough that you can't read the details. But it’s clear enough that you know it's a genuine demo.

You can see the shape of what you're about to get. So it whispers, “wanna see more? You're almost in, just fill this out.”

Peek through CaptivateIQ's blurred gate

Tip #3 - Wait Until They're In Too Deep to Leave

Speaking of forms on step 1…

Demand gen lovessss to hit you with a form before you've seen a thing. Athennian flips the timing.

They let you roll through some of the basics until you get to step six or seven. By then, you should be genuinely into it.

That’s when the gate appears.

You've already seen enough and now you want the rest. Walking away now feels like leaving a movie 40 minutes in.

That's why we love it. Because a gate at the door asks a stranger for their email. A gate partway through asks someone who's already interested. And we don’t have the numbers, but we’re banking that the completion rate of this form has completely different odds.

See where Athennian drops the gate

Build and manage demos directly from your LLM

Navattic just released a major update to their MCP server.

Not only can you get performance metrics or reminders to refresh your demos, you can actually build and edit demos directly from AI agents like Claude 🤯

And now, Navattic has released a library of 16 ready-to-use skills, making it even easier to build on-brand demos, report on analytics, use demos as sales follow up, and more.

For example, let's say you want to update your demos to include messaging around a new feature. Instead of doing it manually, try combining these two skills 👇

Feature launch demo updater: Maps a shipped or changed feature to the exact demo steps that reference the outdated version, then drafts the fix.

Staleness triage: Ranks demos for refresh priority using traffic and staleness.

The Navattic MCP will then:

  • Look through demos by traffic and last updated date
  • Suggested Captures and text edits to those flows
  • Apply those edits directly into Navattic (after your approval)

All it takes is simple natural language prompts, and you can let AI build and improve your demos for you.

I created a short video testing one of the MCP skills, so you can see exactly what they're capable of 👇

→ See the "Demo QA Checklist" skill in action

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, July 22nd at 12PM ET.

→ Register now - It's 100% Free

So that’s it. Our 79th 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
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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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