Why Interactive Product Demos are Essential for Your GTM Motion

Buying behaviors are changing so are your prospects’ expectations. Research indicates that 87% of buyers want a self-serve buying experience. Think transparent pricing, free trials, and most importantly, readily available interactive demos.

The bottom line: buyers want to spend less time talking to sales reps and more time doing independent research.

Gartner’s analysis of the B2B buying journey confirms this—buyers spend nearly half of their time researching independently before making a purchase decision.

While building a pricing page and creating a free product trial have become fairly common for PLG companies, designing interactive demos can be a massive differentiator.

Kyle Poyar from OpenView defines an interactive product demo as “an immersive, self-guided product experience that you can embed on your website”. And that’s exactly what your buyers need—a way to experience your product’s look, feel, and functionality before signing up for an account.

‍

6 reasons why you need an interactive demo for your product

If you’re wondering whether creating an interactive product demo will drive ROI, here are six crucial reasons to prove it will. With interactive product demo presentations, PLG companies can:

‍

1. Optimize the buying experience through self-education

84% of buyers expressed frustration when pressured into taking action—like booking a demo or starting a trail—before they’re ready. Recipe for disaster!

Peyton Walbeck emphasizes that SaaS companies can no longer afford to ignore buyer preferences.  They have to find better ways to educate high-intent website visitors by fulfilling their needs with transparent pricing, case studies, and interactive product demos.

‍

‍

With interactive demo presentations, PLG companies can eliminate the friction in the buying experience and enable buyers to explore your product at their own pace they want to do it.

Interactive demos offer a hands-on view of your product to help buyers understand its key features and benefits. The result? More informed and confident decision-making.

‍

2. Reduce friction for prospects to experience your product

The best product demos give interested viewers the convenience of trying your product’s capabilities and interface without signing up. These demos help potential buyers visualize how they can use different features in their own context and workflows in real-time.

If your product fits the bill, you get a qualified lead with a high purchase intent. If it doesn’t match the requirements, you both save your time. It’s a win-win situation!

One of the biggest benefits of interactive demos is the instant gratification for the end-users—they can immediately see the value of the product. This can speed up their decision-making process and increase your conversion rates.

What’s more, you can personalize interactive demos for every interested prospect. This makes the demo presentations more relevant and valuable to each prospect and nudges them closer to a buying decision.

‍

3. Build a pipeline of high-intent leads with qualified sign-ups

An obvious advantage of embedding self-serve product demos on your website and other channels is getting more marketing-qualified leads. Add a lead capture form at the start or end of the demo to build your lead database.

As prospects engage with your interactive demos, you can analyze their interactions, questions, and areas of interest to get valuable insights about their intent. This works even better when you have multiple product demo examples for different use cases. You can track and qualify visitors based on which demos they watch.

With these insights, your sales team can focus their efforts on the most promising leads and reduce time spent on chasing bad ones.

‍

4. Showcase product updates and share new feature walkthroughs

Creating feature demos for advanced product capabilities is another unique way to generate ROI from these demo presentations. On top of creating a video or a how-to guide, help users adopt complex features by making them a part of the feature walkthrough.

These self-serve demos require users to pay complete attention and take action at some steps. This can minimize confusion and set users up for getting the best out of every feature.

Besides, product demo videos can provide real-time feedback, allowing users to see the results of their actions immediately. This will show them the impact of a new feature or update.

Not just that, interactive demo presentations can also save costs in ongoing customer education. Create these demos once and use over and over again, reducing the need for live training sessions or seminars.

‍

5. Minimize time-to-value for self-guided onboarding

97% of users believe video is an effective way to welcome and educate new users. While videos are great for giving potential buyers a trailer of what your product can do, interactive demos go a step above to help them perform specific tasks and learn more about your product’s capabilities.

Embedding a self-serve demo in your onboarding flow can help new users navigate the interface and give them a first hand view of your product’s value. This can help in activating users quickly.

Plus, since interactive demos capture users’ attention and keep them engaged from start to finish, they can be used for customer training as well.

This will also reduce the workload on your customer success and support teams to educate new users. You can add these self-serve product demos to your help center to add more depth to your support resources and offer a faster resolution time.

‍

‍

6. Demonstrate product value in a tangible way in sales outreach

With interactive demos, your sales teams can showcase product features in a real-world context. No more generic cold emails and clever-sounding messages. Show prospects instantly what your product can do and add better context to your pitch.

You can also tailor your demos for specific prospects to show them you’ve done your homework. This way, you gain their attention and trust to move the conversation forward.

What’s more, with demo videos, potential customers can ask questions and get immediate answers. This two-way communication can help clear any doubts and reinforce the product's value. Once they’re confident about the product’s capabilities, you can fast-track the next steps of the sales cycle.

‍

Interactive product demos are the future; are you ready?

The modern buyer wants a self-serve experience, one that allows them to explore, understand, and evaluate your product independently. Interactive product demos are the key to unlocking this experience.

These self-serve demos not only optimize the buying journey but also help you create a thriving lead pipeline and supplement customer enablement.

So, don't just sit there—it's time to step up your game and give prospects what they want. Start creating interactive demos that resonate with your audience and watch as your conversion rates soar.