Making cold calls. Running sales demos. Multi-threading to decision-makers.
Being a salesperson isn’t always easy. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions product marketers (PMMs) can utilize to make sellers’ lives easier.
In this post, I’m going to talk about why building a demo library for sales enablement assets will transform your reps’ lives and help them win more deals.
But first, why is it even necessary to change what you’re currently doing?
B2B Buyers are Changing: SaaS Sales Need to Adapt
Software companies must constantly evolve to align with the ever-changing needs of the B2B buyer.
In a study by Oracle, 56% of respondents answered “yes” when asked, “Do you feel there is a gap between the existing experiences offered by B2B sellers and your evolving needs for purchasing?”
One of the main reasons this gap exists is that prospects expect a similar buying experience to the ones they’re used to elsewhere. According to the very same study, a whopping 97% of Millennials prefer to buy through marketplaces like Amazon or Alibaba, where the purchasing process is entirely frictionless. As that generation and generations to follow make up more and more of the overall buyer landscape, the onus will be on B2B businesses to remove friction from their own sales processes in order to keep up.
(Sorry to break it to you, but this means we’ll all have to move past using video demos and PDF one-pagers as sales leave-behinds.)
Modern buyer enablement acknowledges that B2B buyers want less of you and more upfront experiences with your product. And shifting to a product-led motion means supporting buyers with more experiences that let them interact with your product throughout the entire sales cycle.
Bottom line: your product will always be your best selling asset.
Equipping your sales team with a library of static assets like whitepapers and eBooks will no longer cut it. Instead, they need something they can leave with the champion that will actually move the needle for the next generation of buyers.
It’s time to rethink B2B sales enablement with the demo library.
What is a demo library, and why do you need one?
A product “demo library” or “demo center” is a collection of interactive, self-guided demos that software companies use to showcase the various features, functions, and use cases of their product(s). Each guided demo in the library should serve a specific purpose.
For example, Reprise customers typically create demos centered around:
- New or complex features
- One or more buyer personas
- A specific use case
- FAQs
- Apps & Integrations
- Analytics
Reprise customers like Pendo and EvaluAgent have taken it one step further by adding a library of interactive demos directly to their website.
By allowing prospects to engage with the product on their own terms even before speaking to sales, these customers and others are able to send more informed, qualified opportunities to their sales team.
These opportunities convert into pipeline at a higher rate, too.
Forrester completed a TEI report for Reprise that looked at the impact of prospects who engaged with an interactive demo created by Reprise. It showed a 60% uplift in average website interactions that converted to leads. And these leads were also 50% more likely to convert into pipeline.
Why is an interactive demo library better than one-pagers and video demos?
There is a lot of scholarly research on attention span for videos and within business learning environments. The research concludes that interactivity increases the attention span of learners. In a world where instant gratification can seem too long, getting and holding a buyer’s attention is the holy grail to effectively demonstrating your product’s value.
Key takeaway: If you keep the buyer engaged throughout their journey and adapt to their preferred method of evaluating software, you’ll have a better chance of winning the deal.
Let’s break down a couple other reasons why an interactive library of product demos is the best sales enablement tool in B2B SaaS.
Accelerate the Sales Cycles: Interactive Demo Leave-Behinds
Product demos resonate best when prospects can experience your product for themselves. There isn’t a better way for sales teams to empower buyers to get hands-on with your product and share it with other decision-makers than an interactive, post-demo leave-behind.
Sharing a self-guided demo after a sales call enables your champion to effectively internally sell your product to everyone else on the buying committee when you’re not in the room.
This interactive, on-the-rails tour of your product is a frictionless way for every stakeholder to get a feel for your product’s capabilities themselves — and on their own time. And with a demo creation platform, you can customize these leave-behinds in minutes.
Optimizing the Buyer Experience: Leveraging Demo Analytics
If you use demo software to build out your demo library, you’ll have access to one of the most powerful and exciting features in sales enablement history — demo analytics.
Understanding precisely who interacted with your product demo and what they viewed and interacted with is a game-changer in optimizing your buyer’s experience.
Demo analytics give sellers valuable insights into what features matter most to their champion and other members of the buying committee — allowing you to target your sales efforts more precisely.
A library of interactive demos: The future of Sales Enablement
The fundamentals of sales enablement include providing salespeople with whatever they need to engage prospects fully throughout the buying process.
And building a demo library is the best way to help your sales team to close the gap between the existing B2B buying experience and what the new generation of B2B buyers want.
Whenever you make it easier for buyers to experience your product and understand its value faster, you win more deals. And there isn’t a more effective way to help sales teams provide modern B2B buyers with the product experiences they crave than with a demo library stocked with interactive product demos.
Learn more about how Reprise customers are accelerating sales cycles and crushing deals. Book a demo today.
