Writing Engaging Content For Product Demos

Sellers - stop giving webinars and start running Demos. So many AEs run demos like webinars. One-sided, feature dumps that lose the prospect fast. Great demos aren’t a presentation; they’re a conversation. It makes the prospect feel like they’re already solving their problem. Here’s how to use psychology to make that happen: 1️⃣ Spark Curiosity – People pay attention when there’s a knowledge gap. Instead of jumping into features, start with a question: “How are you handling [pain point] today?” or “What happens when [problem] breaks?” This gets them thinking and wanting a solution. I call this “setting the table”. Start with a pain recap, dig deeper, then tell them what you’re going to show them to solve it. 2️⃣ Make Them Own It – The endowment effect says people value things more when they feel ownership. Instead of just clicking through, ask: “If this were your dashboard, what’s the first thing you’d check?” Now they’re imagining using it before they even buy. These are 🥷 3️⃣ Pain First, Solution Second – Loss aversion is real. Reinforce the pain before showing the fix: “This takes your team 3 hours right now. What if it took 3 minutes?” That contrast hits harder than any feature list. 4️⃣ Drive Engagement & Validate Value – Demos shouldn’t be passive. Ask questions that make them process the impact: “How would this fit into your workflow?” “On a scale of 1-10, how valuable is this for your team?” “What’s the biggest impact you see?” If they say it, they believe it. 5️⃣Social Proof Wins – Nobody wants to be the only one taking a risk. Drop in proof: “[Big name company] had this exact problem. Now they [outcome].” Makes buying feel inevitable. 6️⃣ Themes – People won’t remember every feature, integration, or workflow you show. In fact they’ll probably forget more than 70% of the whole demo. That’s why you need to reinforce themes. Bring up 10+ times how this will save them time. They’ll remember that. A great demo isn’t a lecture. It’s a two-way engaging conversation that makes the prospect feel like they’re already using your product. Do that, and you’ll close more deals.

"How does Storylane use Storylane?" I get asked this all the time. Fair question. So here's our actual playbook (so far): 1/ Website: Interactive demos on our homepage, product pages, and landing pages. Adding interactive demos to enterprise pages soon (should've done that way sooner). 2/ Champion enablement: GOLD. Custom interactive demos for champions at target accounts. Instead of hoping they explain your product right, you control the narrative. They use these interactive demos to sell internally. We've closed deals way faster. 3/ Conference booths: Screen with interactive demos on autopilot. Simple but works every time. 4/ Demo QR codes at events: On slides or booth backdrop. Attendees scan, experience interactive demos on phones and take your product back home with them. Perfect when booth is packed. 5/ Outbound: Stop telling, start showing. "Here's a 2-min interactive demo" beats feature pitches. Response rates? Night and day difference. 6/ LinkedIn: For announcing new features, add interactive demos links so viewers click through actual product, then book/signup. Or show it as native content on LinkedIn (video/GIF) by downloading your interactive demos. 7/ Demo-led SEO (DLS): Targeted ICP's search queries with tutorial pages with no text and only interactive demos (like "how to merge a custom field in Salesforce"). Grew from 20K to 220K monthly visits in <6 months. Google is loving DLS content. 8/ BOFU blogs: For "Best X Alternatives" posts, embed interactive demos of competitors' products. Visitors evaluate options on your page instead of bouncing to other sites. Game changer. 9/ Product launch campaigns: Hard to time product release date with marketing launch date. So instead create interactive demos from the staging environment of the feature while in development and use it for your launch. Use these interactive demos in webinars and give waitlist early access to the preview with a demo of the feature. It worked amazing for us. 10/ Feature announcements: One-line email + interactive demo link beats lengthy explanations of your feature every time. 11/ Win-back campaigns: Show churned customers what they're missing with interactive demos of new features since they left. Works better than any "we've improved" messaging. 12/ Product validation: Not sure if a feature is worth building? Create quick interactive demos using Figma screens and demo it to gauge prospects' excitement. Saved months of development. 13/ Support: Replace long help articles with interactive demos. People prefer seeing how to solve problems with interactive demos. 14/ Sales Enablement: Give sales team persona-specific and feature-specific interactive demos. Reuse these interactive demos as YouTube content too. 15/ Social - Feature announcements with embedded interactive demos get way more engagement than standard posts. Our demo playbook is continuing to expand, but this is what's working well right now. Hope this helps!

Spent 40 min with one of the best founders I know yesterday (he’s personally selling all their deals himself right now). Entire convo focused on what to SAY during a demo (most sellers actually have no idea): 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “we can do this… and we can do this… and we can do this… any questions?... and we can do this…” Great demos use features and functionality as *validation* that the platform can deliver the customer’s desired results (and solve the challenges currently blocking them). You want the customer thinking about buying the result, and the solution to the problem, not the features themselves. To do this effectively, before you talk about any feature, you want to contextualize it with the outcomes and challenges that matter to the customer (that you learned in discovery). For example, 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “so of course the main thing you guys are working towards is [outcome] and one of the biggest issues is that right now [challenge] so what I want to show you is how we [solve challenge] that should directly result in [outcome]” 𝐎𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “another thing I want to show you as we think about the issue the team is having with [challenge] is how we [solve challenge] which immediately start to free up your reps to be able to do more [whatever] which should then translate directly into more [outcome]” Think of yourself like a teacher. You’re helping the customer learn the relationship between your functionality and the results they want/the challenges they want to solve. Anything you swear by that helps you lead more impactful and engaging demos that I might be interested in?

I’ve spent the last 19 months building a tool that makes better product demos. It’s now being used by Turo, Jotform, Beehiiv and more. I learned a huge amount about what makes a good demo. I narrowed it down to these 7 things 👇 — 1. Storyboard the benefits The “flow” of a demo is super important. You want to highlight the features that add the most value and guide users through them in a way that makes sense. Doing this in storyboard format can clarify the goals of your demo before you start. 2. Zero in on “aha” moments. An “aha” moment is when value “clicks” for a user. Emphasize the moments when problems are being solved. Skip: context, explanations, etc. Use value to organize your demos into digestible sections. 3. Create different demos for different use cases. One-size-fits-all demos don’t work. The best demos are tailored to a specific problem a person is trying to solve and skip everything else. The last thing you want a demo to do is feel irrelevant. 4. Set expectations for length. Demos have a cost: time & mental energy. Good demos just tell people how many steps there are or how much time it’ll take. It's much easier for people to decide to walk through it if they know when it’ll end (or at least know that it won’t take forever). 5. Use design to keep & control interest. Callouts, colors, buttons, etc. All of that stuff should be used and tested. Good UI matters as much in product demos as it does in your actual product, and it can boost demo engagement (it’s also why Supademo has a ton of design options). 6. Add CTAs to your demo. And add more than one. Demos are very, very good at creating moments of inspiration. So put CTAs into your demo at those moments. 7. Personalize & track as much as you can. If you can, personalize to your customer’s name, company, brand, etc. Track the most engaged users to connect deeper. — Any demo is better than no demo. But GREAT demos can drive serious action. What else is missing? #saas #productmarketing #growth #plg

I made the biggest mistake during a product demo call so you don't have to: Back in the day, I used to treat Relate's demo calls as detailed feature presentations. Rookie mistake. The result? - I couldn't close deals - Got a bunch of 'maybes' - Prospects ended up singing with a competitor In reality, the goal of demos is to show how your solution addresses the prospect's problems. Key strategies: - Build the presentation to address the big problems - Emphasize ROI over listing features - Use case studies or success stories to show value - Ask questions and engage with leads During and after the demo, keep discovering.  Pay attention to: - Reactions - Questions - Comments to find new pain points or requirements Document your observations and new information for future reference and follow-ups. Our revenue has drastically changed since I switched my demo approach from listing benefits → addressing problems. I highly recommend that every founder do the same.