What is Demo Automation Software?

Automated demos are highly effective and engaging presales tools if used correctly. They can drive your prospect to take future action or share the immersive experience with their team and internal decision-makers. They can also be made without needing to engage a sales rep or sales engineer.

While automated demos are not meant to fully replace salespeople, they are often used as a powerful sales enablement tool or to serve low annual contract value (ACV) customers.

Here, we discuss what demo automation is and how you can use automated demos as part of your sales motion.

Demo automation software is a type of sales demo software that automates the creation of product demos and gives your prospects an early, hands-on experience with your product.

The demos you create using demo automation software can be used to help excite and qualify prospects who wouldn’t traditionally get a full product demo. These interactive demos are a valuable tool in product-led growth (PLG) sales motions, as they allow prospects to experience your product on their own.

Unlike a static video recording, an automated demo gets your prospect in front of the actual product before qualifying themselves or committing to the sale.

For vendors, this low-touch sales strategy works for low deal sizes or for prospects who may not be qualified yet. Because of this hands-off motion, demo automation can speed up the sales cycle, making moving prospects down the funnel easier.

Automated demos can also reduce pre-sales costs and resources. In a recent case study, Sourceday said automated demos allowed them to spend 30% less time on early-stage demos, which allowed them to focus their resources on higher value and more strategic deals.

An automated demo can be a powerful tool in the modern seller’s toolkit.

An automated demo should highlight product value and unique positioning to solve a business challenge. Simply showing off features is not the goal here. Instead, it should uncover real value.

Here are the ways automated demos can be used at all levels of the buyer’s journey.

Prospecting

The goal of an automated demo is to provide prospects with an engaging introduction to your product. These demos empower your potential buyer to get a brief look at the power of your platform and then prompt them to want to learn more about how your solution can be used to solve their unique business challenges and goals.

At the prospecting stage, your potential buyer will be fairly high-level in the sales funnel. Sending them an email with a product demo is a good way to introduce your product and grab their attention.

Qualifying

Qualifying is the process of assessing if a lead is a right fit for your product. Demo automation works to qualify prospects without sales intervention.

By engaging in a demo, your lead should be able to see the value in your product – on their own time and at their own pace. This also ensures by the time a prospect speaks to a sales rep, they understand the value of your product and are an actively interested buyer.

Because a demo automation gives your leads immediate access to your product, they don’t have to wait days for a business development representative to get qualified.

Post-demo follow-up

Once your lead has been qualified and taken the demo, now is the time to send a post-demo follow-up email.

Follow-up emails are important because they offer a perfect opportunity to continue the momentum built during the demo and move your prospect to the next step in their sales journey.

With demo automation and follow-up information, qualified leads are empowered to become product champions and can secure buy-in from decision-makers.

When developing your post-demo email, here are some things to include:

• A recap of the conversation
• A summary of the main points of value
• The next steps, laid out clearly

Champion enablement

Ultimately, it’s the decision-makers who will give the green light. Enabling your champions to internally “sell” your product will help facilitate buy-in from decision-makers as they move down the sales funnel.

Rather than a 60-minute recording of a demo, an interactive demo that you can leave behind is a way to stand out and allow every decision-maker to get hands-on experience with the product in minutes.

Your champion will also help decision-makers and the entire organization to see both the value in your product and the ease of onboarding.

There are a lot of choices out there for demo automation software. Here are the top ones:

Navattic

Navattic enables any member of a sales team to create controlled, consistent, demos that can be customized and reused. These gold stand demo environments can be personalized in minutes using a no-code editor.

Navattic guided interactive demos can also be used as follow-up material post-live demos, to send to a prospect before the call, or on your website.

Consensus

Consensus is a demo automation video platform that focuses on reducing the number of unqualified demos for your sales and presales teams.

Consensus offers features like analytics, which allow sales to see who has viewed your video and when, and gives you insights into when sales should be engaged.

Loom

Loom is more of a DIY demo software solution that helps users with screen recording and converting them into demo videos. This is not limited to just demo automation but can be used throughout your entire organization for video creation.

Loom can be used as a post-mortem of a sales demo so your champion can use it to help with organization onboarding.

ScreenRec

Like Loom, ScreenRec is another video recording software that users can then convert into demo videos. ScreenRec also offers an analytics feature that allows you to keep track of who has watched your video, when, and for how long.

With the right tools, which include demo automation software, you can shorten your sales cycle, save on resources, and ultimately, convert your prospects.