3 Tips to Speed Up Interactive Demo Builds

Marketers are more strapped for time than ever. And with fewer resources, building interactive demos for different use cases or goals can seem overwhelming.

One way to overcome the overwhelm is to streamline your workflow.

Below, we offer three tips to speed up the time it takes to build interactive demos — without sacrificing quality.

Before we dive into AI, let’s cover what a storyboard is and why it’s important.

What’s a storyboard?

A storyboard serves as an outline for your interactive demo, mapping out what a user sees and does.

A thorough storyboard will include a written copy for each step, a specific step type (modal, tooltip, etc.), and an optional button or CTA.

Why use a storyboard?

Using a storyboard creator helps you organize your ideas and ensure that the journey you’re taking the user on communicates the true value of your product. Our customer Ryan Moline, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Bombora, says,

“I’d recommend using a storyboard template. That exercise has been incredibly useful to me. It feels like an extra step, but it's so helpful later when you’re thinking about what screens to pull in and what you can say about that experience.

It anchors me on what are we trying to convey and helps me make sure I’m getting that message across succinctly.”

Jason Oakley, the founder of DemoDash,, also advocates for storyboarding as a first step when creating an interactive demo:

"Plan it out first and do your storyboard. Ask yourself, ‘What do I want the steps to be?’ Then write the copy for each step and think about the screenshot you want to capture.”

Another benefit of storyboarding is that it acts as a guardrail, helping you catch mistakes before publishing. Ryan explains,

“There’ve been so many times when I’ve created a demo and realized I’m missing a step or have duplicate steps and need to go back to my original storyboard — it’s my rock.”

Jason even has a template for creating Storyboards in Notion.

AI for storyboarding and demo creation

With so much content to draw from, choosing what to put in an interactive demo and how to position it can be a challenge.

AI can jumpstart the process, repurposing existing product videos, webinars, and demo recordings from your sales teams.

Navattic’s AI Interactive Demo Storyboard Generator makes it even easier to draft out a storyboard. Simply:

1. Paste a link to your company’s product page.
2. Add some context, like key features you want to highlight, style and tone you’re going for, or your audience.
3. Click “Generate storyboard.”
4. Get a step-by-step demo structure based on best practices we’ve gleaned from analyzing over 28,000 demos built on Navattic.

Want to see our Storyboard Generator in action? Check out the video here.

Other ways to use AI to help enhance your demo

AI can not only speed up the process of building a demo but also help you tailor it to your buyers.

Try using our AI interactive demo features for:

• Demo copy. Use our AI Writing Assistant to generate a solid first draft based on your product captures.
• Translations. Instantly translate your demos for global audiences.
• Bulk updates. Fake data can be cumbersome to adjust. Use Table AI to clean up messy table data in bulk.
• Voiceovers. Add AI-generated voiceovers to make demos feel even more personalized and engaging.
• Feedback. Navattic’s Demo Suggestions can give recommendations on demo length, copy, and CTAs based on insights from our State of the Interactive Product Demo research.

Task batching isn’t a new concept, but it’s easy to forget how useful it is — especially in the context of demo creation.

By grouping together similar tasks, you can avoid the trap of multitasking and get more done in a shorter timeframe.

For interactive demos, this could mean:

Building the theme first

Pull together everything you need from your website, branding guide, old drafts of copy, and product marketing materials.

Then, set your Guide Defaults to match what you'll need for this build. While you have all of this in front of you, consider making different themes for different use cases.

Or, maybe you switch up the format — one demo can present information via tooltips, and another might exclusively use invisible steps to guide the user through the flow.

Another time-saving hint: Use our one-click AI theme generator to pull the colors, logos, and fonts straight from your website.

Taking multiple captures

If you know you’ll be reusing a certain screen for multiple steps, take multiple captures at once. Doing this is much faster than duplicating steps in the flow builder.

Plus, it allows you to edit a capture without worrying about impacting the work you’ve already done. While you’re at it, use the shortcut Ctrl + C to take captures quicker.

Knock out steps with CTAs first

These steps will be the main takeaways and prompts for user conversion. Getting these done makes the objective of the demo clearer, helping you fill in content that will naturally guide users in the direction you want them to go.

Marketers wear many hats, and sometimes you just don’t have the bandwidth to create interactive demos all on your own.

That’s why we recently partnered with a handful of current and former Navattic customers to create a Navattic demo-building consultancy program ready to build your demos for you.

Beyond being a former Navattic power user, each consultant on our roster has years of experience at B2B SaaS companies in various industries, including cybersecurity, martech, infrastructure, and edtech.

They’ve held SE, product marketing, content marketing, and growth marketing roles at startups, mid-market companies, and enterprise firms. And they each bring different types of interactive demo skills to the table — from website implementation to demo promotion to analytics.

With all this expertise under their belt, they are equipped to give you the personalized, strategic guidance you need to create and promote your demo for maximum user engagement and conversion.

Want to learn more? Meet our Navattic demo consultants and reach out to them through their website or LinkedIn.

Ready to give our AI Storyboard Generator a try?

Instantly get your demo outline, then turn it into an interactive demo with our free trial.