Giving a live demo of your product at a conference can be risky, particularly for more complex SaaS products.

Technical issues can crop up. Attendees can ask off-topic questions. And prospects can forget about your product after they leave the session.

When done right, conference demos can bring your product to life, shorten the sales cycle, and even convert prospects on the spot.

To mitigate the risks and maximize the benefits, conference preparation is key. Here are 6 tips that you can use to increase your chances of a successful conference demo.

6 tips for perfect software demos

Interactive product demos are like regular product demos but do not require a salesperson to walk a prospect through the product. Instead, prospects can guide themselves through a click-through demo and get hands-on experience before purchasing.

Here are a few benefits of using interactive product demos over regular live demos at conferences.

• Since it is not your live product, no bugs or crashes during demonstrations
• Interactive demos are no code, so no technical resources are required to set them up or deploy them
• Booth attendees can click through the demo on their own before talking with your sales team
• Unlike videos, interactive demos work offline, even if you don’t have good wifi

SourceDay, a modern purchase order management platform for syteline, epicor, and netSuite ERPs, shares how using interactive product demos at conferences has benefitted them:

“At [conferences], it is critical that things work to showcase the product in the best possible light. At our last conference, prebuilt Navattic demos gave us the ability to confidently showcase product functionality without risk of potential failure. From this latest conference alone…we created 30 opportunities resulting in significant pipeline generated.”

To make sure you’re 100% prepared on conference day, create mobile swipe versions of your demo and use offline demos in case wifi is spotty.

To learn more about building a conference-specific interactive demo, check out our employee spotlight featuring Navattic’s Head of CS, Alisa Feng.

While many SaaS companies can – and often do – use one standard product demo, it’s more useful and effective to have a library of demos.

Creating a collection of product demos lets you tailor content to each of your ideal customer profiles (ICPs). This can reduce the sales cycle by allowing you to showcase how your product works for different users, use cases, verticals or workflows.

Since conferences are filled with different personas, use cases and end user needs, it’s helpful to prepare a collection of demos in advance.

Here are a few best practices you can use to create a well-rounded demo center:

• Cover a wide range of features without packing too much information into each demo.
• Add filters for use case, feature, and ICP so prospects can easily find what they’re looking for.
• Focus each demo on key value drivers and try to create an “aha” moment for prospects.
• Provide a clear CTA at the end of each demo that inspires action.

To see how other companies have created demo centers, check out our guide: What is a Demo Center? [Plus 5 High-Quality Examples]

You never know who is going to show up, which makes it tough for sales engineers to prioritize the highest-intent booth attendees.

Letting people qualify themselves can help — especially helpful if you have a more technical audience.

In a recent webinar, Lauren Kersanske, Director of Marketing Operations and Analytics at Axonius, shared her qualification strategy.

“This year, we built an interactive tour specifically to filter people at our booth. There were no CTAs or conversion points because we wanted them to understand the product and then go deeper with a sales engineer and have a better conversation.

We even had a button prospects could hit when they were done to signal they wanted to chat with a sales engineer.”

Prior to a conference, check which companies from your ABM list will be in attendance. These are the prospects you should be investing the most resources in.

Once you have a list of targets, create interactive product demos that are customized to those ABM accounts. This includes adding their logos to the demos and making sure they align with their specific use cases.

Interactive product demo editors allow you to easily swap out logos and images, and create customized demos that are tailored to specific accounts.

You can even use Navattic’s Personalization Variables to add contact and account info to flows and captures and use Find and Replace to update demos for specific accounts.

While you’re creating these customized demos, don’t forget to tailor the CTA to each account. Rather than using a standard CTA, encourage these high-value prospects to take action with a CTA that speaks to them.

FORM, a mobile digital assistant for frontline teams, shares this insight about creating demos for specific accounts:

“[We’ve] developed account-based marketing (ABM) product tours customized for target accounts. [These] have helped decrease our cost per lead in ABM campaigns by nearly 50% when compared to [other] campaigns.”

For more ABM examples using interactive demos, check out our guide: [7 Successful Account-Based Marketing Examples from Top B2B SaaS companies]

Conducting follow-up activities after a software product demo offers a prime opportunity to continue the momentum that was built during the hands-on experience with your product.

This is even more important post-conference, as prospects will most likely be exploring other solutions in a short period of time. Conferences can be overwhelming and packed with information. Make sure you stand out by reminding your prospects of their experience with your product.

A follow-up email to your champion and any other team members you met at the conference is a great way to keep the dialogue open. It allows your prospects to ask further questions about your product’s functionality, and for you to ensure they have everything they need in order to sell the product internally.

In order to maximize your chances of success, a post-demo follow-up email should:

• Use bullet points to remind prospects how your product meets their needs.
• Outline clear next steps and identify who is responsible for each.
• Help your prospects champion your product with helpful collateral tailored to their needs.

For more ideas, check out our guide: How to Use Interactive Demos for Sales Leave Behinds

The final step is to reach out to accounts who attended the conference, but who may not have had a chance to interact with your demo.

To do this, you can run retargeted ads, such as Google Ads or LinkedIn ads, using compliant email addresses you collected or the conference attendee list (should you have access to it).

These ads can encourage your audience to take your interactive product demo and learn more about your product.

Conducting this type of outreach will keep your product top of mind, particularly for those prospects you didn’t get a chance to make a personal connection with.