6 answers
Head of Product Marketing, ITSM at Atlassian
In my view, a demo should talk directly to the persona you are dealing with. This means you need to tailor the flow to address that persona’s key challenges, needs, and the situation they live in.
I am not a big fan of super-scripted demos. Every salesperson or sales engineer will have their own way of presenting the story, so I like to focus more on the key value proposition I want to make sure it gets clearly articulated at different points.
Some may see a product demo as the opportunity to tell the prospect everything that there is to know about the product they are pitching, and that’s when you get into an hour-long boring session where the prospect just says “ok thank you for the demo, we’ll be in touch” and you never hear from them again! A good demo will focus on what is important for that prospect and the personas represented in the meeting while pulling them into the story and facilitate a conversation.
When thinking about demo flow, make sure to:
- Build a story: what is this demo about? Who is the main character, what are the challenges we are trying to solve, and what is the end result?
- Create story hooks: these are moments you want to pause and ask the prospect about their opinion or to give them a moment to talk about their own challenges and how they related to what was shown.
- Don’t boil the ocean: it is better to have them wanting to see more details about a specific product area than trying to show every little feature.
- Make it about them: a demo disconnected from the prospect’s reality will fall flat. If you can’t use data that is related to the prospect’s own industry or situation, make sure to address their needs and situation by drawing parallels and similar examples.
Group Product Marketing Manager at Intercom
The best demo's i've seen in my experience we're not super scripted but rather
were adapted to the buyer/prospects needs. In an ideal scenario the discover and
first calls have helped set the stage well ahead of a rep jumping into a demo.
This means a rep has the information required to start on ...more
Senior Director of Product Marketing at InVision
This one ties back up to the question about good sales partnerships. :) I think
the best way to create successful scripts is to do so in partnership with your
pre-sales team. They have more knowledge of what is going on in a buyer’s head
during each stage of your sales process.
Hopefully, this m...more
Product Marketing Lead at Klaviyo
Demo scrips and pitch decks can be very difficult to land, especially if you're
dealing with a generally successful sales org which may be less open to change.
It's super important that you get alignment with Sales so they don't just look
at your deliverables as just a "marketing" thing and ignor...more
Head of Product Marketing at Scale AI
* Tie to your Pitch — ...so that your combined pitch and demo tells one
cohesive story. Tell-show-tell. Tell = pitch where you describe the value of
your solution. Show = demo where you demonstrate the capabilities that align
to your value. Tell (again) = summarize and connect the value...more
Senior Product Marketing Manager at IBM
Work closely with the highest performing sales reps to understand how they're
pitching the product. They typically have "road tested" a bunch of different
approaches and have figured out what works already. Take the best sound bytes
and incorporate it into your script. The best part about this ap...more
