What do we mean?
For complex products, sales and marketing teams sometimes rely on “show-and-tell” in order to help potential customers have a more accurate idea about that product's features and capabilities. However, after 2020, we know video calls can hog internet bandwidth and servers can return a “bad connection” while you are sharing your screen, making your product seem “unreliable”, or even worse, “unusable”. Would you really be willing to risk losing a customer because of server errors?
This is where product sales demos come into play. On one hand, they can look and feel like the real product, and on the other, in a “safe environment”, they don’t have to depend on so many variables.
Based on the goals or the stories, some teams are developing product sales demos specifically to showcase the entire experience and capabilities of the product. Some use the demos to highlight new features. Where needed, certain demos include explainer videos or animations to provide step-by-step instructions; some also allow the user to actually follow these steps directly in the demo.
Knowing that things will work
In a sales cycle, product demos can be scripted. What that means is the showcased product experiences can simply follow a collection of storylines; they can be optimized for your presentation. The experience can be self-contained and wouldn’t necessarily need the support of your server to return real-time results. As a presenter you only need to think about the key points of interaction and your narratives. This essentially turns your product demos into interactive movies. While your customers have control over plot development, you can feel confident that you get to tell your story the way it is intended.
Trackable data insights
Product sales demos can help by giving you more insights about your customers. With built-in tracking systems, you could know where (in the demos) and how much time your customer is spending, or better yet, with whom and where they’ve shared the demos. As for your customers, you are protecting their privacy by not exposing them to everything that your product is connected with. Thinking of improving your sales teams’ performance? Maybe this data can shed a light on your next steps.
Easier to maintain and scale
As stories, the product sales demos require little day-to-day maintenance. Talking to new customers speaking a different language? You don’t need to be concerned with involving your whole product team to work out how the translation can be implemented. Update copy within your demos, and you are done. Need to validate or showcase new features in more realistic settings? Write a new storyline and update your demo as well as invite your customers to experience it first hand. You don’t need to wait for the new build of your product that is “test-ready” before you can start evaluating everything.
Faster and more cost-effective than investing too much too early
Unlike your products or features, product sales demos are centered entirely on your story, which means you don’t have to figure out all the moving pieces from inside out; you only need to focus your resources on the most relevant components. That means faster turnaround for design and development deliverables, and you get to invite your customer to experience the product and also get their feedback sooner.
Less friction when trying things out
For your customers, especially the ones that you are looking to convert, being able to interact with the demo directly helps them better understand your product with less friction. Some product trials give potential customers everything there is to offer without enough guidance.
By giving them access to every component of your product, they might feel overloaded or overwhelmed with information unrelated to their needs. However, with product demos, you get to gently lead them into your solution to their problem and offer strategic support in the sales process.
Moving forward into the new year, businesses need to embrace the new digital landscape in order to thrive. With everyone continuing to work and network remotely, it is more important than ever to keep your show running without apologizing for bad connections or server errors. With the help of self-contained product sales demos, digital-driven businesses are more likely to thrive.
