Your Demo Sucks

By Scott Hoffpauir, Managing Partner

Okay. That title might be a little harsh. Maybe your demo doesn’t suck. But a lot of them do. Demo’s are hard. They require time, investment, measurement and updating. However, many people check the box on a so-so demo, leaving prospects with something that, well, sucks.

How did we get here? In our last blog, we talked about making SaaS solutions easier for customers to try and buy. With a free trial or a freemium model, potential customers can quickly test your solution, understand its functions and directly experience the benefits. Hopefully, this leads to more paying customers.

This process is all well and good. But if you don’t have an easy-to-use SaaS solution, this approach may not work for you. So, what do you do? One thing you can do is focus more on demos.

Demonstrations, or demos for short, are activities that showcase and introduce a product to a potential buyer, hoping to get them to purchase the product. Demos can be videos, sales presentations, webinars, walkthroughs, one-on-one deep dives or sandbox accounts.

But as I shared, demos are hard. They require investment to make them successful. To be effective, you’ll have to focus some of your development resources on making your products show better, incorporate self-service experiences on your website, and change your sales process to highlight demos earlier in the engagement. You might even have to tailor each demo for specific verticals and customers. If you don’t do these things, well, your demo might suck.

So, let’s talk about demos and how to make them more effective. With a demonstration, the user interacts with an environment that mimics the production product. How similar the environment is depends on the demo. Videos are high level, while sandbox accounts are very similar to a customer’s environment.

Typically, there are two types of demos: product and technical. Product demos focus more on the solution and how it solves customer problems and pain points. Technical demos are more interactive and focus on the user experience, interfaces, functionality, management, security, and analytics provided by the product. What type of demo you choose to use generally depends on your target audience.

Demos are an essential part of any B2B sales process. Typically, B2B products are complicated and the value is not easily understood. Demos are a critical way to provide a prospective customer with an overview of the solution, enabling them to apply the solution to their business needs and goals.

As you might have guessed, there are also some advantages to do demos over free trials or freemium models. A demo helps a prospective customer see the value of the product, while a free trial or freemium offer requires the prospect to find it themselves. With demos, customers do not need to make an upfront investment in time or effort either. On the other hand, free trials require the user to take time and energy to go through the trial process and learn the product.

Demo’s also help push a decision from prospects. In the end, the prospective customer should have the “Aha” moment, knowing whether the product is a good fit. Additionally, the sales team gets feedback on pain points in real-time and can answer questions and provide more pointed information.

While free trials and freemium models are well suited for simple to understand SaaS solutions, demos are typically best suited for products and solutions with the following characteristics:

· Complex functionality

· Deep user experience

· Detailed set up (i.e. requires data collection, change to business processes)

· Delivers results slowly (i.e. weeks or months)

· Technical or layered value proposition

If you have a product that fits these characteristics, then upping your demo game is smart. Make demos a core part of your messaging — plan and script what you want to show and the messages you want to convey. For everyone’s sake, don’t wing it. You’ll also have to update your demos as you enhance your products.

A good and simple way to start is with an explainer video. This short clip explains the problems and pain points you’re focused on, introduces the solution, highlights the key aspects of your product, and then summarizes how it solves the problems and addresses the pain points. Another thing to consider is a sandbox with a simple tutorial, helping the user understand the key aspects of the product and how they relate to their problems and challenges.

Free trials and the freemium model aren’t for everyone or every product. But in today’s digital economy, your prospects should have a self-service way of experiencing your products and solutions. Self-service demos are a great way of increasing awareness, but you need to do them right. Every demonstration is a direct reflection of you and your company.

In the end, demos are difficult and require work. By following some of the outlined steps above you can make sure your demo doesn’t suck!