Customer Show & Tell: Kristen Graves Hoppe: Demos at Conference Booths

At our NYC user meetup last year, we asked several of our top customers to present their most effective Navattic use case. In this series, we’ll share their tips and tricks for building interactive demos for specific demo use cases.

Kristen Graves Hoppe, Marketing Director at Syxsense (acquired by Absolute Security) cybersecurity platform and her team use interactive demos to attract visitors to their booth during large trade shows.

Keep learning to hear her strategy behind using interactive demos at conferences to help prospects better understand the value Syxsense brings.

There are several reasons we decided to experiment with interactive demos at conferences:

1. They help us stand out.

Most recently, we were preparing our booth for a huge conference in Las Vegas called Black Hat.

At trade shows like Black Hat, there is so much noise, lights, and chaos. And as a startup, competing with larger, well-established organizations that have extravagant booths can feel overwhelming.

We had to do something different to stand out among the 350 other exhibiting companies. That’s where Navattic demos really shine.

They’re a fantastic way to ensure attendees remember us — and bring the right people into a follow-up conversation after the show.

2. They allow for short, yet engaging interactions.

In the past, I’d see our sales team get into these deep, 30+ minute conversations with prospects, giving highly personalized demos to these few folks while other visitors — who might be just as qualified leads — pass by.

To make sure we interfaced with everyone we possibly could, I needed to streamline our approach.

Navattic demos turned out to be a great way to tease our product and get people interested enough to book one of those longer tailored demos with our sales reps.

3. They educate champions.

Not all stakeholders attend conferences, so our team would end up repeating the same pitch over and over.

Interactive demos can equip a single attendee to become a champion for our solution. And then they can bring others into the conversation post-show.

4. They don’t require strong internet connection.

At events, things always go wrong.

For us, unreliable internet was a frequent issue, meaning we didn’t always get to show off our product in the best light.

We eliminated this variable by using offline-capable demos, ensuring the experience ran smoothly — regardless of connectivity issues.

I was fortunate to work with our sales engineer, Blaze, who is a former customer of Syxsense and deeply understands our value.

Together, we:

1. Identified key features and solutions to showcase, ensuring the demo was exciting enough to spark further interest.
2. Built a high-level interactive demo in Navattic.
3. Integrated the demo into our booth design. For this, we collaborated with our design team.

We made the demo our booth’s focal point by placing a touchscreen with the demo in the main aisle while mirroring it on a large TV screen next to the demo.

We also built another guided flow for deeper conversations

For those ready to engage further, salespeople directed them to additional demo stations.

These stations either had a different high-level demo or more custom versions of the demo with specific features and use cases tailored to specific personas.

That way, we could make sure we were showing the right parts of Syxsense to the right people at the right time.

I would say some pretty exceptional ones for a conference as big as Black Hat. Some highlights include:

• A 63% increase in visitors. Compared to the previous year, we saw significantly more people engaging with our booth, which I largely attribute to the interactive demos.
• More engaging conversations. Visitors asked better, product-focused questions. It was clear they weren’t just seeking swag — they were genuinely interested in learning about our solution.
• Actionable follow-ups. We didn’t feel like we had to push people to sign up for a live demo. Attendees were eager to schedule personalized demos and bring other stakeholders into the conversation.

One of my favorite moments was seeing a single attendee return throughout the day, bringing 15 more colleagues to the booth to explore the demo.

By the end of the day, they had essentially created their own mini-session on our couches, diving into the product with their team.

Interactive demos became the centerpiece of our booth and allowed us to make meaningful connections with our audience.

• We eliminated barriers like hesitancy to talk to salespeople or concerns about demo length.
• Attendees felt more comfortable engaging with the product independently and at their own pace.
• Passersby got interested in the motion and visuals, convincing them to stop and either chat with our reps or continue watching people go through the interactive demo on the big screen.

With Navattic demos incorporated into our booth, we had one of the most successful trade shows we’ve ever had, and I’m incredibly proud of how our team executed this experience.

Here are 6 Tips to Prepare Perfect Conference Software Demos.