Top 8 Saas Demo Best Practices
In a world where customer experience has become an integral part of successful businesses, virtual product demo technology has emerged as an effective sales tool. It provides a way for businesses to create personalized, interactive experiences that showcase the true value of their products and services.
Gartner’s research into B2B buying journeys reveals that buyers are no longer relying on traditional marketing tactics to make purchasing decisions. Instead, they prefer interactive experiences and conversations with vendors—and this is where virtual product demos come in.
By leveraging virtual product demo technology, SaaS companies can create personalized, engaging experiences for their prospects.
These experiences can be tailored to fit the needs of each individual prospect, providing them with insight into how the product or service can help them reach their goals.
This article will provide eight tips to ensure that you create a winning SaaS demo experience.
What Are Demos?
Demos are presentations or demonstrations of products or services given by vendors or salespeople. A demo can be used to show customers the features of a product and how it works.
The goal of a successful demo is to demonstrate why your product is the best solution for the customer’s needs.
Benefits of Hands-on SaaS Product Demos
The benefits of hands-on SaaS product demos are numerous.
First and foremost, they allow prospects to get an up-close look at the software and its capabilities before committing to it.
This helps increase engagement with your software by providing more detailed information than would be available through online materials or webinars alone.
Additionally, these demos provide an opportunity to showcase the true value of your products or services by demonstrating how they can be used in a real-world setting.
Finally, these demos demonstrate how business goals can be achieved through software usage—a key factor in making purchase decisions for many customers. Recent data show demo closing rates for the majority of B2B SaaS businesses range between 20% and 50%.
Best Practices for Leveraging Virtual Product Demo Technology for Maximum Effectiveness
When leveraging virtual product demo technology for maximum effectiveness, there are certain best practices you should follow. Some are as follows:
Personalize the Experience
A personalized approach tailored to each customer’s needs will ensure the demo emphasizes what matters most for that individual and allows them to make the most of their experience. This can include:
- Crafting the demo to focus on industry examples that are relevant and impactful
- Adding custom features based on feedback from other customers with similar needs
- Providing additional resources during and after the demo such as product guides, tutorials, and an open Q&A session,
- Having a segment specifically devoted to the customer’s needs or challenges.
With this detailed attention from a personalized SaaS product demo, customers are more likely to leave feeling confident in their decision and become lifelong users of your product.
To personalize your virtual SaaS product demo, start by understanding your audience. What are their needs? What are their pain points? Once you understand this, you can tailor your demo to address their specific needs.
For example, if you know that your audience is looking for a way to improve their workflow, show them how your product can do just that.
Personalization doesn’t stop there, though. You also need to make sure that you’re engaging with your audience throughout the demo. Ask them questions, get their feedback, and ensure that they understand how your product can help them achieve their goals.
Create Realistic Experiences
Create realistic experiences that mimic live events and demonstrations as closely as possible so that customers feel like they are actually there interacting with your products or services firsthand.
In order to create a truly realistic experience this should go beyond mere slides and scripted visuals.
To ensure that users get the most authentic representation of the product possible you should consider utilizing methods such as role-play scenarios or live demonstration models. This allows a user to try out different scenarios, giving them the answers they need to make an informed decision.
To begin, start with an introduction that outlines the problem that your product solves. Then, highlight the features of the software and explain how they work to solve those problems.
When talking about your product’s unique benefits, use stories, examples or media to make them come alive for potential customers. The key is to provide enough detail to demonstrate value but not bog down the demonstration with too much detail.
Additionally, by providing real-world examples such as case studies and success stories you can give context to what is being discussed so that customers can better conceptualize how your offering will fit into their organization.
As you talk through the features, ask users if they have questions along the way and address any issues they raise. Finally, make sure to include a target call-to-action at the end of each session so customers know what steps to take next
Integrate third-party platforms and APIs
Leveraging virtual SaaS product demos through third-party platforms is a great way to enhance presentations.
Integration helps make the entire process smoother by eliminating the need for manual coding and making data more easily accessible. It allows for more efficient use of resources and provides a better understanding of how to effectively onboard customers.
Additionally, integrating platforms and APIs into your presentations can provide access to additional features that are not available natively, adding significant value to your presentations.
Use Storytelling
Nothing provides a more engaging experience when demonstrating a virtual SaaS product than storytelling. By drawing on the context of the product and creating storylines, it’s possible to make the demo come alive and interactively captivate audiences.
Stories create an emotional connection with customers and prospects, allowing them to relate more to the message that is being communicated. An effective way to build this connection while giving the demo is through stories and anecdotes.
Tell the listener how someone else in their industry solved a similar challenge with the software or even why a particular feature of the software helped them accomplish what they needed.
These stories create an overall positive experience, convincing customers of your product’s value and worth.
By weaving a narrative around the features, benefits, and possibilities of the system, demonstration of a virtual SaaS product can become an immersive experience in which customers and prospects can see themselves using it.
Storytelling provides an effective way to leverage virtual SaaS product demos by immersing viewers deeply in its potential to solve problems and deliver value.
Get Pre-Recorded Videos Ready For Certain Scenarios
By having an engaging and informative video prepared ahead of time, businesses can quickly provide customers with information on their product or service in an easy-to-access format.
This eliminates the need to repeat instructions or explanations in every meeting, freeing up valuable time and allowing employees to focus more energy on customer interactions.
Moreover, by anticipating the types of questions and requests customers and prospects may have, companies can create powerful video recordings that showcase their products in an engaging and informative manner.
A well-made video is a cost-effective choice that provides customers with an exciting digital experience while simultaneously increasing efficiency across the business.
Moreover, it also saves time and resources as it is swiftly available when needed, providing a personal touch without having to go through scheduling or planning a live demonstration.
However, having quality videos requires thorough preparation: content must be solid, production values must be high, and editing should be done with excellence in mind.
To get started, it is best to plan ahead and create an outline of the content you want included in the video. Use visuals wherever possible to make understanding easier.
Then, create a storyboard before recording each individual segment and script out any dialogues. Finally, polish off each scene with animations and graphics that show off more complex elements of your SaaS product.
Focus on Discovery Topics During a Demo
When preparing for a demo it’s important to focus on discovery topics that match up with the customer’s pain points rather than just diving into all the features available with your product.
This allows you to prioritize which features should be included in order to address these pain points most effectively during the demo itself.
It also helps create an engaging dialogue between you and your customer as well as making them feel like their needs are being heard and addressed by your team.
In this approach, it is important to keep the rule of three in mind. The rule of three states that no more than three features should be demonstrated at once during your presentation.
By limiting yourself within a boundary, it prevents you from getting off track and ensures that each feature has its own time in the spotlight so it can be properly explained and understood by customers without feeling overwhelmed by too much information at once.
Additionally, it also helps keep your pitch focused on only those relevant aspects that directly relate back to solving their specific pain points rather than wasting time going over unnecessary details or functions they may not even need or use anyway.
Stick to Your Agenda
Following an agenda when giving a virtual SaaS product demo will help you to focus on specific features and capabilities that are most important from the customer’s perspective and provide them with relevant, targeted information.
Preparing an agenda beforehand also enables you to maximize time efficiency as well as ensure that there won’t be any unnecessary delays or long pauses.
Moreover, having a staged structure with key actions laid out step-by-step could prove invaluable for keeping everyone aligned throughout the entire duration of the presentation.
Your agenda should focus on the key areas that matter most to your prospect and show how your solution can help address their biggest pain points.
You should start by providing a header or summary of the agenda at the beginning of the demo so that prospects have context for what they are going to be learning throughout the presentation.
Once you have established your agenda, you want to identify three main pain points for which you will provide solutions through your product or service during the course of the demonstration.
Your goal here is to show prospects exactly how they will be able to use your product—in real-time—to solve their biggest challenges.
By focusing on only three main pain points, you will be able to deliver a more impactful demonstration that emphasizes how quickly and easily they can begin seeing results with your solution.
It’s also important that you set aside enough time for each segment of the demonstration so that it flows smoothly from one point to another without feeling rushed or disjointed.
If possible, try to allocate equal amounts of time for each segment so that all parts of the demonstration are given equal attention and emphasis. This will ensure that nothing is overlooked or glossed over during your presentation, which could lead prospects away from making a purchase decision.
Finally, once you have completed demonstrating how your SaaS product works and explaining its features and benefits, it’s important to explain any next steps needed in order for prospects to move forward with purchasing decisions.
This could include signing contracts, completing paperwork, scheduling follow-up meetings/calls, etc., depending on what is required by both parties involved in order seal the deal.
Make sure this step is included in every presentation as it ensures a smooth transition from demonstration to sale closure.
Follow Up After Demo Is Completed
Once the demo has been completed, it’s important that you follow up with prospects within 24-48 hours following the completion of the presentation (ideally via email).
Follow-up emails should include links/attachments containing materials discussed during the presentation as well as any next steps needed in order to move forward with the purchase process (if applicable).
Following up helps keep lines open between both parties involved and ensures no questions or concerns go unanswered prior to closing the sale successfully!
Final Thoughts
Virtual product demo technology offers tremendous potential when it comes to revolutionizing sales processes within businesses today.
It allows companies to engage customers in realistic interactions while showcasing the true value of their products or services through hands-on demonstrations that demonstrate how business goals can be realized through software usage.
A successful demonstration must go beyond mere feature showing is an important insight that many business owners overlook.
It is easy to forget that people don’t buy products for the sake of having them, but rather for what value it can bring to their lives.
A good demonstration needs to highlight how a product could solve an individual or collective problem, making life simpler and reducing stress for its target market.
By following best practices such as personalization and seamless integration of third-party platforms and APIs into presentations, organizations can maximize the effectiveness of this powerful tool when engaging potential customers during sales processes today!
If done effectively, the demo needs to let your customers envision the potential there is in implementing this product into their daily lives and routines, so they can recognize its value on an emotional level and make more of an attachment to it.
To learn more about how to grow your SaaS business, don’t forget to check out our blog.
