5 Tips to Prepare Perfect Conference Software Demos

8 minute read

Giving a live demo of your product at a conference can be risky, particularly for more complex SaaS products.

Technical issues can crop up. Attendees can ask off-topic questions. And prospects can forget about your product after they leave the session.

When done right, conference demos can bring your product to life, shorten the sales cycle, and even convert prospects on the spot.

To mitigate the risks and maximize the benefits, conference preparation is key. Here are 5 tips that you can use to increase your chances of a successful conference demo.

5 tips for perfect conference software demos

Tip #1: Create an interactive demo

Interactive product demos are interactive copies of your software, meaning they look and feel like your software but you don’t have to worry about bugs or crashes. They can either be guided click through demos, so prospects can guide themselves through the product or live controlled sandboxes.

Interactive product demos move beyond traditional conference product demos videos by allowing prospects to interact with your product. They offer a tangible way for prospects to experience your product and visualize it integrating into their workflows.

Here are a few benefits of using interactive product demos (over regular live demos) at conferences:

  • Because an interactive product demo is already prepared, this significantly reduces the risk of bugs or crashes during demonstration.
  • Interactive demos are no code so you don’t need technical resources to set them up or deploy them at conferences
  • The visualization and interactive element keep prospects engaged in the experience.

This reduced the need for multiple salespeople or solution engineers to be on premises since prospects can click through and use the demo on their own.

SourceDay, a modern purchase order management platform for syteline, epicor, and netSuite ERPs, used interactive product demos at conferences to build pipeline:

“At [conferences], it is critical that things work to showcase the product in the best possible light. At our last conference, prebuilt Navattic demos gave us the ability to confidently showcase product functionality without risk of potential failure. From this latest conference alone, using Navattic we created 30 opportunities resulting in significant pipeline generated.”

Tip #2: Create demos for different purposes

While many SaaS companies can – and often do – use one standard product demo, it’s more useful and effective to have a library of demos.

Creating a collection of product demos lets you tailor content to each of your ideal customer profiles (ICPs). This can reduce the sales cycle by allowing you to showcase how your product works for different users, use cases, verticals or workflows.

Since conferences are filled with different personas, use cases and end user needs, it’s helpful to prepare a collection of demos in advance.

Here are a few best practices you can use to create a well-rounded demo center:

  • Make sure your demo center covers a wide range of aspects and features of your product, without packing too much information into each one demo.
  • Organize your demo center so prospects can easily find what they’re looking for. Demos can be organized by ICPs, use cases, vertical, product features or more.
  • Focus each demo on key value drivers and try to create an “aha” moment for prospects.
  • Provide a clear CTA at the end of each demo that inspires action.

To see how other companies have created demo centers, check out our guide: What is a Demo Center? [Plus 5 High-Quality Examples]

Tip #3: Create demos for top accounts

Prior to a conference, check which companies from your ABM list will be in attendance. These are the prospects you should be investing the most resources in.

Once you have a list of targets, create interactive product demos that are customized to those ABM accounts. This includes adding their logos to the demos and making sure they align with their specific use cases.

Interactive product demo no-code editors allow you to easily swap out logos and images, and create customized demos that are tailored to specific accounts.

FORM, used interactive demos to create custom CTAs for target accounts:

“[We’ve] developed account-based marketing (ABM) product tours customized for target accounts. [These] have helped decrease our cost per lead in ABM campaigns by nearly 50% when compared to [other] campaigns.”

For more ABM examples using interactive demos, check out our guide: 7 Successful Account-Based Marketing Examples from Top B2B SaaS companies

Tip #4: Create a post-conference demo follow-up

Conducting follow-up activities after a software product demo offers a prime opportunity to continue the momentum that was built during the hands-on experience with your product.

This is even more important post-conference, as prospects will most likely be exploring other solutions in a short period of time. Conferences can be overwhelming and packed with information. Make sure you stand out by reminding your prospects of their experience with your product.

A follow-up email to your champion and any other team members you met at the conference is a great way to keep the dialogue open. It allows your prospects to ask further questions about your product’s functionality, and for you to ensure they have everything they need in order to sell the product internally.

In order to maximize your chances of success, a post-demo follow-up email should:

  • Provide a recap of top priorities - Remind prospects what they’re aiming to achieve and how your product meets their needs. Bullets points are helpful for this.
  • Outline next steps clearly - What happens next? Will you be providing them with technical specifications? Are you waiting for a green light from them? List out next steps and identify who is responsible for each.
  • Champion enablement - Help your prospects champion your product within their organizations. This means including additional helpful collateral, tailored to their needs.

For example email templates, check out our guide: How to Craft a SaaS Demo Follow-up Email That Converts.

Tip #5: Continue to advertise your demo to accounts who attended the conference

The final step is to reach out to accounts who attended the conference, but who may not have had a chance to interact with your demo.

To do this, you can run retargeted ads, such as Google Ads or LinkedIn ads, using compliant email addresses you collected or the conference attendee list (should you have access to it).

These ads can encourage your audience to take your interactive product demo and learn more about your product.

Conducting this type of outreach will keep your product top of mind, particularly for those prospects you didn’t get a chance to make a personal connection with.

For more insights on building conference interactive demos, read an Employee Spotlight from our Head of Customer Success on How to Create a Conference Interactive Demo.

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