It’s not what you sell that matters as much as how you sell it!

Brian Halligan, CEO & Co-Founder, HubSpot

A typical buying activity involves either of two routes. Either you’re taking away your target consumer’s pain point or providing something of a pleasure. As a buyer, you know you’re ready to stash open your wallet when a seller demonstrates how their product:

1. Solves your crucial pain points,
2. Provides benefits such as saving you time, money, and resources to bring better results with identical levels of effort

Without further ado, let’s dive into the five principles to demonstrate your SaaS products.

Live Demonstration For SaaS Products | The Principles

At the outset, here are the five principles you need to keep at the forefront of every product demonstration.

1. Be succinct
2. Tell less, show more
3. Demonstrate your product’s USP
4. Talk more about “what” than the “how”
5. Let the audience conclude for themselves

Let’s discuss all of them with relevant examples.

Note: Most live demos are not available for recording hence for presenting examples we have used pre-recorded videos.

#1 – Be Succinct

Time is of the essence, quite literally! Naturally, therefore, you need to craft a concise and compelling “why” for your prospects to opt for your product.

Example

Loom

Loom is a video messaging tool that helps users send messages through instantly shareable videos. You can simultaneously use Loom to record your camera, microphone, and desktop. Your video is then immediately made available to share across different mediums.

In this five-minute software demo video, you can access a complete walkthrough of every element in the user interface to help you kickstart your Loom journey. It’s a time-bound, concise and informative video and is a great template to implement.

#2 – Tell Less, Show More

By giving a visual representation of how your product or service works, the concept is better understood by the target audience.

Example

Duolingo

Duolingo is a language-learning website and application. It allows users to practice vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation using spaced repetition, and it is fun and accessible. It is available in over 30+ languages.

In this 30-second software demo video, Duolingo explains what the app is about and how to use it effectively.

#3 – Demonstrate Your Product’s USP

Rather than bombarding your target audience with jargon and lengthy descriptions of the feature-set, demonstrate your product’s USP – showcase in vivid detail the use-cases of your product or service.

Example

Slack

Slack is a workplace communication tool. It’s an instant messaging platform that allows users to share messages and files.

It consists of focused spaces called “channels” for organised discussions around specific topics. In addition, this division allows users to ask queries and catch up with new developments in the designated spaces. Slack promotes inclusivity since information is available to everyone in the channel all at once.

In this quick start guide video, a prospective user can immediately understand what Slack is and how to navigate its user interface to start messaging instantly.

#4 – Talk More About “What” Than The “How”

Instead of mentioning your product or service’s inner workings that make it do what it does, focus only on the outcomes. Consider only showing how it gets things done.

Example

Drift

Drift is a conversational marketing and sales technology company that facilitates communication with website visitors in real-time to increase engagement, generate leads, and increase sales.

While Drift talks about ROI and conversion rates amongst a whole host of things, what it does best is to show in real-time how its product gets used in a specific setting – say, winning more sales deals. This walkthrough allows the user and potential customer the freedom to get a feel for the product and make up their mind before proceeding further down the funnel.

Check out how you can clinch more deals using Drift by viewing the software demo video linked below.

#5 – Let The Audience Conclude For Themselves

Provided you execute with finesse, your “demonstration” will leave no room for doubts in your prospects’ minds as to what your product or service can achieve for its users.

Example

Supermetrics

Supermetrics is a central hub for all your marketing data. It brings it to your go-to reporting, analytics, or storage platform. Essentially, it doesn’t let your marketing data be scattered and act as a hindrance to executing business goals.

The KISS principle states – “Keep it simple, silly.” Supermetrics has followed this approach in a short software demo video.

It shows how it only takes a few clicks to set up your marketing data transfer in particular use cases. Just over two minutes long, the video is an excellent example of making it easy for the target audience to understand and make conclusions without much thought.

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Key Takeaways

So, what are some macro-level takeaways that we can draw from these SaaS businesses?

#1 – Teach, don’t sell

People are busy. They want to learn about stuff. So give the “secret sauce” to them in the first 5 minutes of your demonstration. They’re more likely to be engaged in the pitch this way since they’re not anticipating and wondering what will happen next.

#2 – It’s a proof of work

Your demonstration is a proof of work, not an explicit demonstration per se. You’re actively solving a problem for your audience to prove that your product works and doesn’t need specific variables or situations to live up to its billing.

#3 – What is it solving, exactly?

Clearly state the more significant problem that your product aims to tackle. Next, you need to understand your target audience’s daily challenges. Then actively engage your prospect and showcase how your product will solve their specific problems.

#4 – State the achievable gains

Ask your prospective customers how much time/money/people-hours it takes for them to solve their concerned problem on a usual basis. Then, actively show how your tool cuts it by the relevant percentage points.

#5 – Maintain essentialism

Remove significant chunks of information yet still allow the prospect to know how your product works. Skip the “how” sections and jump to the “what” section.

Parting Thoughts

We hope this piece provides you with actionable insights on presenting successful demos for your SaaS company’s product. Whether it’s a pre-recorded demo with a presenter or a live demonstration given by your sales representative, the strategies shared in this article are absolutely killer. Our best wishes on converting more users with demos!

Open To Explore?

We believe content marketing can be truly transformative for SaaS businesses. Strategic content marketing can bring many more product enquiries your way. We at Concurate – a founder-led boutique content marketing agency, curate well-researched engaging content to attract your target audience. We strive to bring you business, not just traffic. Open for a short discussion on how content marketing can help your SaaS business? Book a call here!

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