How to Choose the Best Product Demo Tool for the Job
A practical guide to choosing between product demo software options
This guide will help you understand how to choose the right tool to demo your product:
- Prioritize the problems you're looking to solve.
- Understand your product demo tool options (video, interactive demos, sandboxes)
- Test each option with a decision-tree
Why this playbook might help you: There are a lot of options for demoing your product and it can get pretty confusing (especially if your product is particularly technical). People generally start with videos and then go up to interactive demos and sandbox environments.
All of these can work together in a cohesive strategy, but deciding how to map each method to specific goals and use cases can be a sticking point.
What’s in the playbook: We’ll go over the product demo options and walk you through the steps to decide how to demo your software. This is a practical framework for decision-making.
What are the different ways I can demo my product?
UI screenshots used to be the go-to, but now there are a few main categories people look at:
- Videos
- Demo automation/interactive demos
- Sandboxes
Let’s look at the things to keep in mind as you map demo options to your use cases.
First, figure out which problem you’re solving
Before we go down the path of deciding the best demo solution, it really helps to start with a specific problem in mind. Having that front and center will make the decision-making infinitely easier. For example, here are a few of the demo pain points we hear a lot (and the corresponding demo format that can help):
Pain Point | Demo Formats That Can Help |
|---|---|
1. Sales reps spend too much time on unqualified leads | Interactive demos |
2. Static content is insufficient for complex software demonstration | Interactive demos, sandboxes |
3. Live production environment is unreliable for high-stakes demos | Sandboxes |
4. Product releases break demo environments at critical times | Sandboxes |
These are some examples to get us started, and for now just holding the problem you’re trying to solve in mind is enough to get us started!
Product demo options broken down
Each demo format solves different problems, and can be mapped to different points in your buyers’ journeys. This section will go over each of the main formats and break down what they’re generally best for, with some pros and cons.
Video Demos
Most people move from screenshots to videos and go for either quick, informal videos or highly edited product explainer videos.
Use cases for videos
- Top of funnel marketing content (social, landing pages)
- One-off demos that don’t need to be revised or polished
- Internal enablement
Video benefits
- Quick to produce if you don’t need a polished output
Video considerations
- Multiple team members need to create consistent, on-brand demos
- Not interactive, so prospects don’t get to experience the product
- Re-record from scratch when the product changes (e.g. think about UI changes)
- Poor qualification signals
Intro to tooling options
- Tools like Loom - these are great for getting started and quickly spinning up short videos that are easy to trim and share. They’re solid for internal uses (e.g. for internal feature release explainers), but harder to get to the quality you’ll likely need for sharing with prospects.
- Tools like Screen Studio (Mac only) - these are great for relatively polished output and more in-depth editing options like smooth zoom effects and the ability to reformat videos (e.g. into vertical formats).
Interactive Demos
Interactive product demos make it easier to create polished, personalized, and refined experiences for your prospects. Prospects can explore your product and get a sense for how it truly looks and feels.
Use cases for interactive demos
- Self-serve evaluation
- Rapidly evolving products
- Qualification before sales calls
- Embedding onto marketing sites (as individual demos or demo collections/libraries)
Interactive demo benefits
- Clickable and exploratory so prospects can get a feel for how your product truly looks and feels
- Easier to update and maintain than video
- Easier to edit and personalize the recorded UI
- Easier tracking and data-driven decisions - demo data and engagement information can feed into CRM and analytics tools (and be used for things like more robust lead scoring)
- Stronger for scaling
Interactive demo considerations
- Mostly guided paths - demos follow a predefined sequence of screens, so users can’t freely choose their own path and it’s not the same as freely navigating the real application
Intro to tooling options
There are two main types:
- Screenshot-based interactive demos - these are slightly easier to capture and edit than video, but are limited when doing things like modifying UI elements. They can also fee like clicking through a slideshow from the prospect’s perspective.
- HTML-based interactive demos - HTML-based interactive demo software offers a lot more flexibility and you can do things like swap images, change scroll positions after capture, and hide/blur elements. From the prospect side, they’re more engaging than video and let prospects experience the product in more depth.
Sandboxes/Demo Environments
Sandboxes are non-linear demos where all buttons work, allowing users to explore freely.
Use cases for sandboxes
- Enterprise sales cycles
- Deep evaluation before buying
- Live demos that must never break or impact production environments
Sandbox benefits
- Free exploration - live sandbox environments sit on top of your production environment and provide a real product experience that gives prospects a true sense for the look and feel of your application
- Fully isolated from production
- Safe data and realistic scenarios so live demos never fail in front of a customer
- Less reliance on engineering support
Sandbox considerations
- Require careful setup and maintenance
- For many use cases they will be more robust than is truly needed for the stage in the sales cycle
Decision Tree: Which demo format should you choose?
Questions to check your demo choice:
Before you invest in tooling for any demo format, here are some questions you can run through to make sure you have the right format in mind.
1. What is the core problem we want the demo to solve?
2. What actions do we want the prospect to take after seeing the demo?
3. Do we need/want tracking and integration with CRM/analytics?
4. How much should demos be personalized for each prospect?
5. How often will the demo need updating? (e.g. How often do we release UI updates?)
6. Who owns demo creation (marketing, product, sales)?
Next steps/going deeper
If this was helpful and you want more of a deep dive into the best interactive demo software options, this video offers an overview of the whole demo landscape.
If you just want to try interactive demos, you can start a free trial here (or contact us if you’d rather talk).
