As buyers increasingly expect to be able to do research, browse options, and test-drive products on their own, the world of B2B SaaS marketing has changed.
Well, it’s changed in a lot of ways, but today we’re talking about self-guided product tours. They can help your product show what it has to offer without prospects committing to a free trial or a full-scale demo.
It’s perfect for those prospects who are still just seeking information and trying out multiple options to narrow down their search. And it requires much fewer resources than having your sales reps and sales engineers out giving demos to anyone who’s just a little bit curious.
But how can you create great self-guided product tours? It depends on your audience and your product. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here. But here are a few things I’ve seen that work well.
A Small-Scale Demo
Creating full demos is really resource-intensive for most companies. And giving those demos requires time from the sales, and SE team too. You just can’t give that to everyone, but you need to find a way to show some of your product in action if you’re a product-led company.
Some of our Reprise customers use our software to recreate the whole experience of how the full demo would work, but with the product tour as a guide instead of a sales rep. You can’t click around on anything you choose and get the full product experience like you would with a trial, but prospects can go through it themselves whenever they choose at their own speed.
Feeling Free
Plus, buyers these days don’t like feeling like they’re giving up something just to get eyes on your product. They don’t need a full demo right away, but they want the freedom to look around and investigate on their own terms.
The key to a good self-guided product tour is ensuring that you test and try multiple options so the tour gives enough info without feeling constricting.
And with these small-scale demos that prospects can access anytime, you’ll also free up your sales engineering and product team to focus on the product roadmap and new features instead of committing them to constantly creating and showing new demos.
Enable Your Champions
This is the benefit that’s most exciting: you can use these self-guided product tours to enable your champions. AEs can’t always meet with the entire buying committee, because these days in the SaaS world they’ve gotten so large. However, your champion can show the product for you and win over anyone needed on their team.
If you’re handing over the full product or a live environment to your champion, things are now out of the control of the sales team. What if your champion hasn’t had their second cup of coffee for the day and clicks on the wrong feature or button? After all, they’re not product experts, and if they go to the wrong place, the demo could be sunk.
With a self-guided product tour, you don’t need to worry about that happening. You can distill your product into ‘aha’ moments – where the lightbulb goes on when you’re doing a full, live sales demo. (Don’t know exactly what those moments are? Ask your sales team – they’ll know immediately.)
And those moments are foolproof even in the hands of an enthusiastic but under-caffeinated champion – you’re enabling them to do what they do best and setting them up for success, so they look great and so does your product.
Set Yours Up Today
It’s fast and simple to set up multiple self-guided tours for all your use cases with Reprise. Check it out today!
Photo by Nathaniel Sison on Unsplash
