What Is Demo Automation and How Can It 10x Your Pipeline?

If you are not using demo automation technologies in your go-to-market motion in 2024, you are missing out on prospects who want to try your product before they commit to a live demo.

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So, what exactly is demo automation, and how can it be one of your most powerful tools for growth? In this article, we will explore the power of demo automation, how it differs from traditional live demos, and how exactly automating some of your sales processes with interactive demos can take your company to its next growth stage. Let’s dive in!

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The traditional live demo sales motion

In the world of B2B sales, especially in the software industry, live product demonstrations have long been an integral part of all sales processes. Early on during a sales cycle, these initial demos, typically conducted by skilled sales reps, often serve as the very first crucial touchpoint between the company and potential clients. They provide an opportunity to showcase the product's capabilities, address specific client needs, and move prospects further down the sales funnel.

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Depending on a product's complexity, a sales rep might partner with a solution engineer at the beginning or throughout the sales process, who would answer more technical or difficult questions. Some products and software can have a much longer sales cycle than others, requiring many of these sales demos (For context, Jason Lemkin from SaaStr shared some benchmark data on B2B Sales Cycle length based on Annual Contract Value here). 

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For many companies that follow this traditional live demo sales motion, the only way to meaningfully grow their pipeline and attract more customers is to hire more salespeople (and solution engineers) to run more live demos.

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The limitations of a live demo sales motion

Now that we have set the stage for the traditional live demo sales motion, what are some of the limitations associated with this motion? Here are some challenges that come to mind:

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• Live demos are resource-intensive: Before a live demo session actually takes place, there is A LOT that goes into the preparation. Whether the demo request was inbound or outbound, a sales development representative (SDR) still needs to schedule the time, research the prospect, send out a pre-demo questionnaire, correspond back and forth on the questionnaire, prepare a tailored demo presentation, and then deliver the demo in person or live through a video call.

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This is even a bigger challenge for smaller companies because they tend to work with a much smaller sales team. Unless they are willing to bet on increased demand and hire more salespeople, there is very limited growth potential.

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• Lack of scalability: If done right, demos need to be personalized based on prospects’ problems and needs. A demo for everybody is a demo for nobody. But it’s extremely hard to deliver personalized live demos to a larger number of prospects. In these scenarios, the sales team would have to prioritize some prospects over others, leaving potential deals and money on the table. 

• Inconsistent quality of demos: When you rely on an SDR team to deliver 100% of your live demo sessions, there will be variability in the quality of each demo. This is because your SDR team most likely consists of SDRs with different levels of experience and expertise, making it challenging to control the quality of demos. Again, this makes it harder to acquire customers consistently and grow meaningfully. 

• Limited Reach: Geographic and time zone limitations impact the ability to reach global prospects if your SDR team is centrally located unless you are exclusively selling to a specific geo

• Engaging prospects with live demos over Zoom and other conference call software: Virtual meetings and demos have become the new norm since COVID-19. While there are many benefits to running live demos over Zoom, let’s face it: it is also significantly harder to maintain prospect engagement during a demo call. Your prospects are likely multi-tasking between several different windows and conversations, and your sales rep would need to work much harder to compete for their limited attention. Otherwise, no deal.

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While this traditional approach to live demos has been effective for many years, it has limitations in scalability, consistency, and efficiency. As we'll explore in the following sections, demo automation offers a compelling alternative that addresses many of these challenges while helping your business reach its next stage of growth.

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Demo Automation: The Alternative to the Traditional Sales Demo

Demo automation is a tech-driven approach to showcase a product or service to prospects without needing a live sales rep, allowing prospects to explore your product and its capabilities at their own pace. This has become increasingly important in the modern B2B sales landscape, where buyers have indicated that self-serve information (including demo automation) is among their top 5 factors when buying software, according to a recent Trustradius 2024 research report.

There are different forms of demo automation, but interactive demos and product tours are the most common use cases in which you can create beautiful and engaging demo experiences that keep your prospects engaged throughout, increasing the likelihood of a qualified prospect moving forward within your sales funnel. If you are eager to jump right in and try your hands out at creating interactive demos, check out this guide on creating interactive demos that convert!

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The Benefits of Demo Automation & Interactive Demos

Scalability and Reach

Demo automation/interactive demos allow you to:

• Deliver consistent, high-quality demos to an unlimited number of prospects. 
• Provide 24/7 access to your product demo, accommodating prospects across all time zones.

Increased efficiency and time-savings

Managing one of your most important resources - your salespeople - is extremely important, especially if your company is still small and in the early stages. By using interactive demos, you can:

• Reduce time spent scheduling and preparing for demos with unqualified leads (a Hubspot article shared that only 25% of leads are qualified and should be sent to sales).
• Allow your sales team to focus on high-value activities and meaningful follow-ups.

Increased prospect engagement

When it comes to keeping your prospects engaged during the discovery phase of the sales process, interactive demos offer several advantages over traditional demos:

• With interactive demos, prospects can choose to explore features that interest them most or most relevant to their problems.
• Interactive demos can be tailored to specific industries or use cases.
• Interactive elements (such as hotspots, captions, music, etc.) keep prospects actively involved rather than passively watching.

Data-driven Insights to improve your prospects’ experience

It could be hard to draw meaningful data-driven insights when you only run live demos with sales reps. Most interactive demo software comes equipped with data analytics and reporting features that can inform your sales strategy:

• Analytics on user interactions and engagement metrics.
• Feedback collection to understand prospect preferences and pain points.
• Data-driven optimization of demo content and follow-up strategies.
  
  

Learn how Quantum Metric doubled their demo conversion using Arcade.

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What is Demo Automation Not?

It's important to clarify some common misconceptions about demo automation:

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• It does not entirely replace the human touch in the sales process.
• Rather than eliminating live demos, it complements them by qualifying leads more effectively and prevents your company from spending valuable resources on unqualified leads that would never convert.
• Demo automation is not impersonal or overly complicated; On the contrary, it can be highly customized and user-friendly!

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Check out our comprehensive knowledge base and educational content for more information on implementing and optimizing demo automation.

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How Arcade can help you double pipeline

Arcade's demo automation and interactive demo software offer a powerful solution for businesses leveraging the benefits of demo automation. With user-friendly and intuitive content creation tools, robust analytics, and seamless integration with your existing sales stack, Arcade can help you create engaging, personalized demos that effectively convert prospects into qualified leads.

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Ready to grow your sales pipeline? Try out demo automation with Arcade's interactive demo software today and experience the difference for yourself!

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If you have any questions about how Arcade could work for your team, drop us a line at sales@arcade.software or book time a time with us here.

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