Learn about the best sales techniques and tactics backed by sales professionals that you can use to close more deals this quarter.
A product demo, or sales demo, is the act of presenting a web-based or physical product and its value to a qualified prospect. In the demo, sellers show a buyer how the product works to solve their specific pain points, helping them to envision using the product within their business. Product demos typically occur live on a call or videoconference, but can also be pre-recorded as a video. A well-done demo can help you convince the prospect to buy and experience the product's benefits.
Businesses that sell products typically generate and qualify a lead, then host a demo as part of their lead nurturing activities. You may even choose to dedicate a stage in your sales pipeline to a product demo, or give a demo within your sales presentation stage. During the demo, you highlight the product's features that can specifically support the unique goals and pain points your prospect mentioned during discovery, helping them to see the value of your product.
The overall process of a product demo can be boiled down into three main stages:
Demos for complex software-as-a-service (SaaS) products tend to happen live in person or via software, wheras physical product demos are often performed in person or via a pre-recorded video. This article focuses on live demos like the below, which are effective at building relationships with prospects and personalizing their experience. You can follow the same steps and tips to record a long-form product demo video to share with qualified leads.
If you're looking to create a 1- to 5-minute video demo to host on your website as a marketing tool, check out this article on how to make a product demo video. Otherwise, if you're looking to give live demos to individual prospects or record 15- to 30-minute videos that speak directly to your ideal customer, read on to learn more about the key components, steps, examples, and tips involved in hosting a great product demo.
The best product demos follow a demo outline that includes several components meant to help your prospect identify with your product and its benefits. After introductions, use the information you've learned about the prospect (or your customer profile if you're recording a video) to create personalized talking points related to the problem, your solution, and a few product features and their benefits. Then, build trust with success stories from similar customers and set next steps.
Specifically, the main components of a demo outline are the following:
Your introduction should be brief and include information on you and your business, rapport-building questions about your prospect and their business, and mentions of any relevant industry or company news to demonstrate your knowledge about the business segment and/or their specific company.
The problem overview involves quickly mentioning your understanding of the prospect's goal, the challenges getting in their way, and the implications of leaving the problem unsolved. You'll then state any specific issues or pain points and ask the prospect to confirm that your analysis of the problem is correct.
Here, you'll highlight how your product can solve the prospect's pain points, plus the overall value proposition. This step also involves giving an overview of what your product is and what it does. The goal here is to briefly summarize how the product works to solve the problem before you talk more specifically about the features and actually demonstrate how it functions.
Highlight the 2–3 features of the product that matter most to the prospect. Inform the prospect on how specifically they can use the current feature or functionality to solve their problem. In the end, your prospect should have a solid understanding of your product, how they would use it, and the benefits they could expect.
Highlight some success stories of current customers that are similar to your prospect and were experiencing problems or pain points similar to your prospect's before working with you. These can come from individual conversations with your customers, testimonials, or wherever you collect feedback.
At the end of the demo, ask your prospect to take next steps with you. This could be a sales pitch, another demo, a follow-up conversation, or something else according to your sales process. You might also choose to disqualify the prospect at this point.
Keep these components in mind as you start to create your product demo and write your talking points. This will help you keep your demo brief while also providing the crucial information your prospect needs to know to decide whether they're interested in moving forward.
Before your demo, first learn about your lead and find a time that works for you both. Plan and host your personalized demo, then set next steps. By the time you mention these next steps, your buyer should be able to see the value your product could bring to their personal or professional life and be interested in signing a contract or learning more. Below, check out the three overarching steps to hosting a demo and their details.
Regardless of whether you're demonstrating a software or physical product, there are several types of product demo software that can help you give your buyer the best experience possible. These include videoconferencing platforms so you can see your prospect and share your screen, collaborative screen sharing tools so the buyer can test drive your product, and presentation software so your demo looks and feels professional. We give a top option for each type below:
Zoom is a videoconferencing platform that most prospects will be familiar with and comfortable using. You can see each other so your demo feels personal, and you can share your screen as you show how your product works and run through your demo outline. You can even save your meetings as a video. Zoom's free version caps meetings of three or more people at 40 minutes, but you can upgrade to the $12.50 per user, per month Pro level to remove these limits.
Demodesk is a collaborative web-based screen sharing platform specifically geared toward sales professionals that hold demos. With Demodesk, you can share your screen and show a buyer the basics of your SaaS product, then you can seamlessly switch the controls to the buyer so they can experience using the product themselves. Pricing starts at $25 per user, per month, which includes unlimited meetings.
Google Slides is free presentation software that helps create a clean, appealing presentation to accompany your sales demo. With Slides, you can start your demo with a title slide, then share a written agenda to help the prospect know what to expect, plus any other slides to recap what you've learned about them and/or list next steps. Your demo can be set up within the presentation, or you can toggle between the slide deck and the software you're selling.
Google Slides was named one of our best presentation software, as well as one of our best free presentation software options. Give these articles a read to learn more about the tool plus its use cases and features.
Start with these three software types as you create and give your first product demos, then add other software if you discover another tool that would help you give smoother or more efficient demos to your prospects.
Depending on whether you've chosen to host a live, long-form video, or short video sales product demo, there are well-done examples that can help get you started and inspire your own demo. Below, we've included a quality example of each of the three main types of product demos.
After you watch each example, take note of the practices that you believe will help you execute the demo outline you've created, including the relevant features, value proposition, use cases, and success stories. Even if you're planning to host live demos, you could come away with helpful tactics from one of the example videos.
Above, we wrote several best practices to keep in mind as you host your product demo, but there are other tips that can help you prepare for the demo beforehand. To ensure you do your best during your demos, take a look at these top four tips for holding product demos, including simplifying the process for your prospect, being fully prepared, having a more experienced sales rep join your first few demos, and recording a brief video demo.
Perfecting your product demo will take time, so follow these tips as closely as possible, and you'll gain confidence in your ability to present your product in the best way for each prospect.
A product demo is the act of showing your potential customer how your product can solve their specific pain points. It’s when the illusion of what your solution looks like in the prospect’s mind — or the confusion they feel so far — is replaced by the real thing. Essentially, it's when they think, “Now I see how it works, and I like it.” Now that you understand the basics of a product demo, start mapping out a demo that will wow your ideal customer, and create iterations from there.