5 Ways to Incorporate Interactive Product Demos Into The Customer Journey
During a bygone era, prospects would sit back and watch the sales process unfold in front of them. The product was often hidden so first interactions with the product would occur after a few calls with the vendor. They might have a video or blog post to share on the product if they were lucky, but the opportunity to get hands-on in a sales-led motion was a rarity.
With the product-led growth era, all of those expectations are being flipped on their head.
Prospects expect to see or enter the product, before talking to sales. They expect to experience it, because that is the norm in their consumer lives.
That's one of the main reasons why interactive demos are striking a cord with modern buyers; they engage the prospects early on in the sales process with hands-on access.
With that in mind, here are some tips to effectively use interactive demos in the sales process.
What is an interactive product demo?
Interactive product demos provide prospective customers with hands-on product experiences in the sales and marketing process. Typically, they are guided and enable users to get hands-on with a product without needing to set up a full account.
It’s also important to note that in most cases, interactive demos are NOT a replacement for the actual demo. There is great value in conducting discovery and having a dedicated space to answer use-case specific questions.
It follows then, that interactive demos are commonly used to generate interest and excitement by showcasing a limited subsection of the product, not the full end-to-end walkthrough.
Interested in implementing interactive demos? Let’s next explore some areas where they are commonly used.
Where can you use interactive product demos?
Whether it’s top-of-funnel lead generation or post-sales activation, interactive demos can be used throughout all facets of the customer journey. Let’s explore use cases by department.
Marketing
Website Product Tour
Teams are using interactive demos as a way to engage casual website visitors with an interactive, hands-on experience in the product. Why? They’ve seen increases in lead conversion and quality of leads (more enterprise customers) that tend to shy away from free-trial based approaches.
Email Outreach
Use interactive product demos to keep your offering top of mind and maintain relationships with early stage prospects by sharing engaging demo content in email outreach campaigns.
Sales
Outbound Outreach
Use interactive demos to book more meetings in outbound sales outreach.
Post-Demo Leave Behind
Empower champions to get hands-on with the product and secure buy-in internally.
Customer Success
Interactive Documentation
Create interactive trainings that engage and activate new users.
What are the immediate benefits of an interactive demo?
Now that we’ve explored what interactive demos are and where they can be used, let’s talk through some high-level benefits.
- Product-led pipeline generation - Become product-led and drive lead generation. Whether interactive demos are used on the website or in email outreach, provide a new mechanism to engage & convert casual prospects using your product.
- Increased demo conversion - Enable prospects to champion your product internally and secure buy-in with post-demo leave behinds.
- Informed, product savvy prospects & internal teams - Activate both internal and external users faster through interactive trainings. Reduce time to ramp new team members, customers and partners by providing frictionless access to the product.
Do you see more benefits than those outlined here? Have additional use cases that are of interest? Please reach me via email or linkedin, I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.