GTM Roundtables: Interactive Demo Copywriting with Anna Furmanov + Erin Balsa
Head of Growth & Product Marketing
About this series:
At our NYC user meetup, we asked our advisors to share some of their strategies for tackling challenging marketing projects with limited time and resources.
In this post, we’re covering interactive demo copywriting with B2B SaaS marketing experts Anna Furmanov and Erin Balsa.
Ready to make your demo more enticing to prospects? Keep reading or watch Anna and Erin's talk below to get their best copy tips.
Why spend time on copywriting?
Words matter. The words we use on our website motivate visitors to check out our interactive demos.
And the copy we use in our demos tells potential customers whether the product suits their needs (or not).
Navattic’s data suggests that the highest-performing demos are usually placed on product pages, linked out from a CTA to another page,
So first, we’ll cover how to write compelling copy for the landing pages where your interactive demos sit.
Then, we’ll share how to make the copy inside your interactive demos sustain prospects’ attention and push them toward a live demo (or a different conversion point).
4 copywriting tips from Anna
Before we dig into the actual copy, I want to point out four key elements of outstanding interactive demo landing pages:
1. They make the demo easy to find.
Your interactive demo should feature prominently on your website.
According to Navattic’s State of the Interactive Demo data from last year, placing your interactive demo CTA above the fold or in the nav bar gets you the highest engagement.
Jellyfish, for example, puts their interactive demo above the fold on their platform overview page:
2. They hook you in.
Your landing pages should clearly explain what your product is and who it’s for.
On a different interactive demo landing page, Jellyfish adds a screenshot of the Allocations area of their product as a little preview:
At the top they clearly explain who the platform is for (data-driven engineering leader).
They also use bullets on the right-hand side to communicate the platform’s value prop, framing it in terms of solutions to common problems that prospects face, such as not having time to implement continuous delivery, having a fragmented strategy, etc.
And they take one more important step toward hooking me in: personalization. They include “Furmanov Marketing Consulting” in the subheader.
Tip from Erin here: If you have personalization on your site, put a note in your calendar to QA it from time to time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to a site and the customization is wrong.
If you’re in a particularly competitive space, you’ll also want to make sure your landing page highlights why your product is different. People need to know why they should choose your product over the others out there.
Klue’s Win-Loss product page does this well. Instead of a screenshot and bullets, they use a video to explain how their product stands out from others out there.
3. They have a persuasive call to action.
Navattic’s data shows that “Start the demo” and “Try demo” are the highest-performing CTAs for interactive demo pages.
- Start the demo has an 81.44% average engagement rate and 43.75% average click-through rate.
- Try demo has a 72.55% average engagement rate and 38.97% average CTR.
Both of these CTAs and ones like it really push the prospect to go in and get their hands dirty.
Tip from Erin here: Because so many companies have been sales-led for so long, the word ‘demo’ has a connotation of ‘talk to sales.’ So it's really important to be clear about what the experience will be in your CTAs. Think it through — if your CTA is “get a demo” are people going to assume they’re getting a live sales demo? If your CTA is “try the product” are people going to think they’re getting a free trial? Using action-oriented language like “start a demo” or “try a demo” works well because it clarifies that the demo is a self-guided experience.
4. They give you options.
Some visitors may have already gone through your main interactive demo. Some may have read your other content or researched your product on G2 and are ready to talk to sales.
So don’t just have an interactive demo CTA.
Cater to prospects further into the buying journey by adding “Request a demo” or “Book a call” CTA as well. That way, visitors have more of a choice of how to proceed.
Tip: If you have a more complex product or sell to a wide variety of buyers, consider building a demo library and directing folks there as a CTA so they can explore your product even more.
5 copywriting tips from Erin
Now that we’ve got the landing page elements out of the way, let’s cover tips for writing the copy.
1. Deliver on your promise
This is just a general marketing principle: your copy needs to deliver on the promise you’re making in your headline or CTA.
Sometimes, there’s a disconnect.
So, if you say you’re going to show them X thing in your interactive demo, X thing is what they need to be seeing in your interactive demo.
Jellyfish excels at this, promising to show visitors how they will “work better, feel more confident, and achieve better results.”
And they deliver. Here’s one step from their demo:
From just this one step, you learn how Jellyfish helps you:
- Work better: spend less time on manual calculations.
- Feel confident: come to meetings with data.
- Yield better results: prioritize resources for better productivity and efficiency.
2. Focus on benefits, not features
I know that we’re showing visitors the product. But you can frame features in ways that make them sound like benefits.
Guru, for instance, doesn’t list out their various integrations.
Instead, they lead with the benefits of those integrations: “Users can search for, find, and create content without leaving their workflow.”
That’s a lot more enticing than, “We integrate with Outlook or Gmail.”
3. Be concise
Top-performing demos use about 15 steps and keep the dialogue in each box at a maximum of 25-30 words.
Vitally does this well, keeping steps one sentence or less.
People do want to explore your product, but they don’t want to spend 30 minutes doing it.
You don't want people to be on each step forever. Too much copy and wordiness increases the cognitive load. You want to get the point quickly and move on.
4. Use inviting, personal language
You want to seem friendly — not stiff and corporate. One good way to do that is to speak directly to the user. Use words like “you,” “your,” “let’s,” and “we.”
Dooly does this well, speaking directly to the user at every step as if they are a colleague. They emphasize how easy it is to understand which deals are in flight and act on them:
Other words used in top-performing demos include:
- “Welcome”
- “Simple”
- “Love”
- “Benefit”
- “Custom”
These are words people like and respond to.
5. Carry your brand voice
If you’re trying to be a relatable, fun brand, that voice should make it into your demos. It should feel like a consistent experience going from your website into your interactive demos.
Klue does this well, sprinkling their playful brand voice into their demo.
Here’s a step relating their Alerts feature to a “Batcave for collecting, sorting, and managing your intel.”
That’s not right for every brand. But the people who like Klue respond well to this. And it keeps marketing fun.
Results of effective demo copywriting
If you follow this criteria for your demos, you can expect, on average:
- A 60% engagement rate — that is, 60% of users get past the first step of your demo.
- A 39% completion rate. So if your demo is 15 steps, that’s pretty good to get them all the way to the end.
- A 32% click-through rate on the final CTA (aka, more of them end up talking to a sales rep).
- Roughly 1.7 minutes of time spent on your demos. That might not sound like a lot, but it is. People are really busy, and this is enough time for them to get a flavor of your product.
Do a self-check.
How is your demo performing? Are you following our best practices?
Use this blog as a checklist to refresh your landing pages and demos over time. By implementing these tips, you can create more engaging, effective interactive demos that drive better results for your business.