9 SaaS Demo Best Practices For Success & Examples

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November 13, 2024
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17 minutes
Lorenzo Nicolini image
Lorenzo Nicolini

Imagine you’re a SaaS founder preparing to launch your product. You know that a product demo is one of the best ways to attract attention and explain your solution to your target audience. But as you research best practices for SaaS demos, a nagging thought creeps in: What if I mess up the demo? What if the video doesn’t resonate with my audience? These are typical concerns, especially if you’re new to creating product demo videos. This article will help you boost your confidence by exploring the best practices for SaaS demos, with examples illustrating their value.

Moonb's product demo video service can take the stress out of creating your SaaS demo by producing a polished, professional video that will engage your audience and showcase your software's unique features and benefits.

What Is a SaaS Demo?

employees in a meeting - SaaS Demo Best Practices

A SaaS demo is a short, typically 20 to 30-minute session that aims to demonstrate a SaaS product to potential customers and evaluate it for possible purchase. A successful demo covers all aspects of the product relevant to the customer and addresses their concerns about the implementation. Nevertheless, these aren’t the only objectives of such a session.  

The Real Goals of a Product Demo

The true purpose of a software demo is not to let an upmarket customer see the product. Granted, demonstrating the product is part of the process. It is not its first and foremost objective. A solid demo aims to achieve three other goals:  

To Confirm How Well You or Another Rep Has Qualified the Lead

As part of the sales process leading up to the demo, someone, you or another sales rep, had to qualify the person as a good sales opportunity. The company may already have a lead scoring model they use to vet free trial and freemium leads. You may have another way to identify product-qualified leads. 

The product demo allows you to verify what you’ve found in person during the lead qualification process.

To Demonstrate Fit

Your lead has most likely already done extensive research about your product. The fact that they’ve agreed to a demo suggests they consider it a potential solution to their problem. The demo session allows you to present the product in the context of their pain points and needs and demonstrate how well it can help overcome those.   

To Build Credibility

More and more SaaS customers expect vendors to be knowledgeable about their problems. Those people no longer sign up for a product because it meets their needs. They choose a vendor they trust to understand their challenges and work proactively to eliminate them through product development. 

Sitting with a lead one-on-one is your chance to present the company as being at the forefront of industry innovation.    

To Close the Sale  

The product demo is your opportunity to discuss the next steps and close the deal. Granted, your lead might need help making the call during your meeting, but at least they should be able to commit to some of them. 

You could send them further information, a contract, a service agreement for review, or any other information they lack. Or they could organize another session with the company’s tech team. Whatever those steps are, talking to the person lets you plan action to make the deal happen.    

Developing Profitable Long-Term Relationships  

Even when a prospect doesn’t buy immediately, you can follow up after a sales demo and ensure your products or services remain at the top of your mind. And don’t be surprised if prospects also share their sales demo experience with others and constantly refer people to you. 

According to research, 82% of sales professionals see building solid relationships as the most crucial and rewarding aspect of the sales process. Thirty-six percent of sales managers think follow-ups sent to high-quality leads are the most critical tracking metric.

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5 Steps To Run A SaaS Sales Demo

employees in an office - SaaS Demo Best Practices

1. Do Background Research to Understand Your Prospects

Creating a compelling SaaS product demo starts with understanding who you’re pitching to. This involves conducting thorough pre-discovery research, which helps tailor your demo to your prospect's needs. You can gather insights by browsing the company’s:

  • Website
  • LinkedIn profiles
  • By sending out short prescreening surveys

2. Outline Your Key Points and Structure the Demo

Preparing a structured outline of your talking points is crucial. This outline serves as a roadmap for the demo, helping sales reps keep the conversation focused and relevant. Incorporate insights from your pre-discovery research to personalize the demo, crafting examples and feature highlights that match the prospect’s specific use cases.

3. Deliver the Demo with an Interactive and Engaging Approach 

It’s time to present the demo with your research and outline ready. Focus on keeping the prospect engaged by following a few key practices: 

  • Show Relevant Use Cases: Bring in real-life scenarios or case studies that reflect the prospect’s challenges to make the demo relatable.
  • Ask Discovery Questions: Ask questions to gain deeper insights into the customer’s needs, which will help you adjust your approach in real time.
  • Make It Interactive: Let the prospect try out the product, giving them a “hands-on” experience that builds confidence in its value.

4. Follow Up with a Summary and Additional Resources 

After the demo, send a follow-up email that includes a summary of key points covered. This recap reinforces the value presented in the demo and serves as a reference for other stakeholders involved in the decision-making process. Consider adding extra resources, like case studies or a link to your pricing page, to support the prospect in making an informed decision.

5. Check Back with Interested Prospects as Needed 

Some prospects might be interested but have yet to be ready to make a decision. Track these potential customers and set reminders to reconnect after some time. Reengaging when they may be more receptive can help turn initial interest into a sale. 

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Moonb is a video marketing agency offering unlimited video editing subscriptions to elevate your content. Key features include:

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We’re the ideal partner for companies aiming to enhance their marketing and educational efforts through powerful video content. 

Start a 3-day free trial to take your content to the next level with our product demo video service.

9 SaaS Demo Best Practices For Success

woman on a laptop - SaaS Demo Best Practices

1. Keep It Simple

B2B prospects don't want lengthy product demos that require them to answer a long list of questions before they test your platform. You also don’t have to blow your SaaS marketing budget to create lots of different content. It's better to deliver interactive product demos that allow potential customers to browse through your platform while you guide them. 

This approach gives them a first-hand understanding of your software and how your product features work. Your target audience can convey their pain points to you, and you can specifically showcase solutions and tools that satisfy their needs. 

Keep your demo simple and create content emphasizing your value proposition and how this solves your prospect's pain points.  

2. Use Actual Data

SaaS sales demos should avoid walking prospects through different buttons and menus. Instead, they should highlight the features that solve customer problems and validate these solutions with actual data. They should also use customer stories and case studies to show how your product can help prospects through actual data and figures. 

The Power of Data-Driven Demos

The saying "Numbers don't lie" could not be more true for your SaaS demo. Prospects want to see how your solution can help them through quantitative results. For example, when showcasing specific features, you can validate your claims with statements like: "This feature has helped one of our clients increase productivity by 10%."

This strategy for your sales demo is more persuasive for your target audience. It doesn't just show prospects your software, but it explains how it could benefit their businesses and processes.  

3. Focus on Buyer Pain Points

We've mentioned this before in the SaaS demo best practices, and we have to repeat it: focus on your buyers' challenges and points. Personalizing your sales demos to fit each customer's pain points would help. 

Understanding Your Customer's Pain Points

When B2B customers make a buying decision, this is based on the best solution they find to add real value to their organizations. To accomplish this, have your sales department research each client and understand their challenges. You can do this through target audience research or directly asking customer segments through surveys. 

Tailoring Your Pitch to Market Trends

Keeping up with the latest SaaS market growth and trends is equally important. Once your sales rep understands what each customer is looking for in a SaaS, they can showcase specific features and benefits of your software that resonate with them.  

4. Leverage Storytelling

Storytelling, including your SaaS product demo, is critical to your sales process. There's no point in delivering an endless list of features and benefits; you'll quickly overwhelm and confuse your customers. This is where storytelling becomes relevant. 

Crafting Personalized Stories with Your Demo

Personalized demo content can develop deeper relationships with your customers and enable you to connect with them. Using a story-based approach, walk prospects through your software meaningfully. Your sales process must involve a story about how your software can add value to your prospect's organization. 

For example, if your company offers marketing automation software, your story may begin by pinpointing a challenge. Then, guide prospects through how different features can optimize processes and teams for greater efficiency.

5. Include Customer Success Stories

Customer testimonials and success stories are imperative for your SaaS product demo. B2B customers are more likely to buy after reading a trustworthy review. This is unsurprising because these buyers are responsible for their chosen solutions and need assurance that others have used and benefited from your software. 

Using Customer Success Stories in Your Demo

You can use customer success stories in your product demo by mentioning case studies and reviews relevant to each client. For instance, if your sales team delivers a product demo for a client in the marketing industry, they should mention testimonials and quote actual data for customers in the same sector or facing the same challenges. 

6. Personalize the Experience

Personalizing the experience is a top SaaS demo best practice because your client must be at the forefront of your walkthrough. It's about understanding their:

  • Internal team infrastructure
  • Market position
  • Competitive advantage

Tailoring Your Demo to Specific Audiences

Your product demo must approach these factors and show your target audience how your software can add value to different departments and areas of operations. Train your sales teams to gather valuable insights about each client before your tour, and have them deliver a personalized experience that resonates with specific audiences.  

7. Create Engaging Content

High-quality content makes or breaks your demo video. If your visuals are static and outdated, prospects will find staying engaged with your product tour challenging. In other words, they'll need help to focus on the value your software delivers and, instead, will be deterred by low-quality content.

The Power of Interactive Demos

B2B buyers are likelier to choose a provider that delivers relevant content they can consume interactively. This means your product demo should comprise interactive content requiring your target audience to navigate your software for an immersive experience. 

Engaging Your Audience with Interactive Content

This approach is much more engaging than static content explaining how your product works and the value it offers. Remember, the more engaged your customers are, the more likely they will stay invested in your product after the demo. 

8. Remember to Be Adaptable

The sales demo steps are like an adaptable script you can refer to and pull from to ensure you provide all prospects with an on-brand, consistent, and professional experience. Also, make sure you run through various situations with your sales manager regarding why prospects might need your product or service and how it can help them so you’re ready for all scenarios. 

Anticipate Questions and Adapt Your Approach

You might choose to review some possible questions the majority of prospects currently ask the rest of your team so you’re ready to provide quick, helpful, and impactful responses on the fly. And remember, every interaction, prospect, company, and situation is unique, so prepare to adapt the demo as needed. Your job is to meet your prospects where they are and show your:

  • Support
  • Flexibility
  • Commitment to their success  

9. Listen

Prior to, during, and after the delivery of any sales demo, you must listen to both the prospect and your fellow reps. You must listen to your prospect's:

  • Needs
  • Pain points
  • Concerns
  • Questions
  • Hesitations
  • Positive or negative feedback

This will allow you to customize the demo and all future conversations to fit their needs and tailor the points you make during the demo to highlight the ways your product can resolve their challenges. 

Nearly nine out of ten sales professionals say sales today is more about listening to the customer than talking to the customer. You need to listen to your fellow reps. 

Your demo process is ever-changing, and as the team working with prospects, you’re responsible for:

  • Conversing with them about their issues and needs
  • Delivering the demos daily

Who better to ask for feedback on the current demo process (what should stay the same and what could be improved) than the other team members? Maybe they’ve uncovered something you’ve never thought about or encountered (and vice versa).

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Top 5 Examples Of Effective SaaS Demos

1. Animated Software Videos by Moonb: Breathing Life into Software Products

moonb - SaaS Demo Best Practices

Moonb produces animated software videos creatively explaining complex products with a human touch. Their V-NOVA demo showcases this complex product's features using fun animated characters that viewers can relate to. By the end of the video, you understand V-NOVA's technology's benefits and how it can help you. This is how you create a great demo.

2. UserGuiding: A Digital Adoption Tool That Knows How to Demo

user guiding - SaaS Demo Best Practices

UserGuiding is a digital adoption tool that helps users build interactive demos and onboarding sequences. A tool that helps people build demos should have a great demo to prove its worth, right? That’s why UserGuiding serves all kinds of people. 

UserGuiding offers all three kinds of demos:

  • Live demos for high personalization
  • Video demos to increase the range of reach
  • Interactive demos to demonstrate their effectiveness 

3. IKEA Place: The App That Makes You Feel at Home

ikea - SaaS Demo Best Practices

IKEA Place is IKEA’s new mobile app that lets you virtually place IKEA furniture in your home by scanning it. Their video is bright, and it displays what the app does and how it works. Nevertheless, the best part of this demo is that the video also shows the benefits with real-life examples. 

A demo that creates an emotional bond and proves that the audience can empathize with your problems is more likely to engage the target audience. 

4. Duolingo: A Working Demo That Gets Right to the Point

duolingo - SaaS Demo Best Practices

If you live on Earth, you may have heard of Duolingo. Even people who have no interest in language learning know what Duolingo is. This enterprise company has to prove worthy and show that they are the to-go choice for everyone no matter how they prefer to learn. They included all their features in a video, and they made it seem to work. 

In the demo, they have proven that they deliver while quickly demonstrating how things will be. That’s how you do a working demo. 

5. Apple Vision Pro Product Demo: A New Perspective on Demos

apple vision pro - SaaS Demo Best Practices

Apple's Vision Pro demo video speaks to desires and needs and shows firsthand the magic of experiencing its immersive world. The approach of this product launch video is all the more valuable since we're looking at a spatial computer. 

The product video offers a glimpse into the world through the eyes of a Vision Pro user. It's a stunning video that:

  • Provides a clear picture of what it's like to have a personal screen
  • Demonstrates controlling tech with natural gestures
  • Showcases simultaneous exploration of mixed realities

A Glimpse into the Future: The Dual Perspective

But right when you're getting comfy with the new features and feeling like a user, action switches, and you start seeing, from a distance, the user with the headset on. This is quite the clever "dual perspective." It's not just storytelling; it's bringing the future to life. 

The video demonstrates how the product might fit into your everyday routine and makes you start craving that futuristic feeling in your own hands.

Start a 3-day Free Trial to Take Your Content to the Next Level with Our Product Demo Video Service

Video marketing is one of the best ways to promote your SaaS product, and product demo videos are particularly effective. Moonb can help you create a stellar product demo video that:

  • Boosts your marketing efforts
  • Enables you to win over your target audience  

Moonb is a video marketing agency offering unlimited video editing subscriptions. We offer seamless project management integration via:

  • Trello
  • Slack
  • MS Teams
  • Weekly strategy calls
  • Contract-free, full-service production approach

Why Choose Moonb: A Superior Video Solution

Moonb is a superior alternative to traditional video agencies, freelancers, and in-house production teams. Our flexible, subscription-based model, combined with our expertise in creating compelling video content, positions us as the ideal partner for companies looking to elevate their marketing and educational initiatives through the power of video. 

Start a 3-day free trial with our product demo video service to take your content to the next level.

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