Planning and Delivering Software Demo Presentations That Close

With customers more educated and self-directed than before, and with so many product options available in such a competitive industry, effective software demo presentations have become critical for closing deals. In fact, 78% of B2B buyers will only get on a demo call from their top 3 vendors. So if your brand is on a prospect's short-list, nailing the demo presentation could be the difference between a closed or lost deal.

In this short guide, we'll take a look at the ins and outs of software demo presentations, offer strategies that drive success, and explore how tools like TestBox can streamline and improve the entire demo process.

What is a software demo presentation?

A software demo presentation is a demonstration of a product’s features and functionality. It can be delivered in different formats, but its primary goal is to showcase how the software solves specific pain points and compares to competitors.

There are two main types of software demos:

• Interactive demos: Self-guided, bite-sized product tours that let prospects get a preview of a product before wanting a more in-depth and tailored demo. These are effective in earlier stages of the buying process but often aren’t enough to close a deal. 
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• Live demos: Real-time presentations typically given by a salesperson or solutions engineer, providing a more personalized and in-depth product walkthrough. These are often used in later stages of a deal and are tailored to buyers’ specific needs and use cases. 

As the landscape has evolved, buyers now expect interactive demos earlier in the process so they get a basic understanding of the product before they engage with sales. But live demos are still essential, especially for closing more critical or complex deals.

What has shifted with software demo presentations?

Several significant trends have reshaped software demos and how they’re delivered: 

• "Get a Demo" Doesn't Always Deliver: Buyers are often frustrated when they’re promised a demo but don't actually get to see the product right away. Since today’s buyers are usually more self-educated, they want to see the one thing they can’t get elsewhere, a hands-on look at the product.
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• Complex Products, Complex Demos: As products become more intricate, it’s harder to showcase them in a demo. Many sales teams resort to shortcuts or "faking" a demo without fully functional environments, which can decrease trust with potential buyers. Or they have to rely on solutions engineers to demo the product, which slows down deal velocity and eats up sales engineers time. 
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• Demo Maintenance Struggles: Demos are important sales assets, yet they're sometimes treated as an afterthought. Sales and solutions teams often struggle to keep demo environments up-to-date, full of clean compelling data and functioning properly, which can lead to poorly performing environments and lost deals. 

Software demos vs other product evaluation formats 

Software demos, whether interactive or live, are only one component of the customer evaluation process. They're often supported by POCs and product tours. 

• POCs aim to provide a deeper dive, which allows customers to test the product with their own data and use cases. They can be time-consuming and resource-heavy, but POCs are effective for end-stage negotiations.

• Demo videos are similar to product tours or interactive demo experiences in that they serve as a lighter, self-guided experience. They're helpful during the early stages of a buyer's journey, but they usually are not enough to close a deal alone. 

While both are helpful, a well-executed software demo is still one of the most effective ways to drive a deal forward and close. Hence why planning and delivering presentations the right way is critical. 

Nailing the software demo presentation

A major consideration for a successful demo presentation is determining precisely who needs to demo what, and when it needs to happen.

At TestBox, we’ve discovered a sweet spot helping AEs deliver early-stage demos: primarily first call demos, also known as “harbor cruise” demos and industry/persona demos that tell value stories specific to those audiences.

These demos are unique enough to let buyers see how the product can fit into their workflow, but they're not so tailored that they require ongoing support from the engineering or solutions teams.

In fact, by automating these early stage demos, most organizations can free up their more technical solutions and sales engineers for custom demos for larger and later stage opportunities. 

Planning, structuring, and delivering

A well-executed software demo presentation begins with careful planning that involves the following steps:

• Define clear objectives: What do you want the demo to achieve? Is it meant to build excitement, address specific pain points, or differentiate your product from competitors?
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• Understand your buyer: Research the prospect's specific needs, pain points, and buying stage. Take time to understand who the decision-makers are and make sure your demo speaks to their priorities.
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• Identify key talking points: Focus on value propositions that resonate with your audience. Highlight features that clearly address their specific use cases, industries, or challenges.
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• Create a logical flow: The demo should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Use storytelling techniques to make the process both memorable and engaging.
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• Show, don’t just tell: Visuals can make or break a demo. Don’t ask your prospects to “imagine,” and instead help buyers see themselves in your product by demonstrating key features in real-time. 

• Tailor and personalize the presentation: 91% of buyers who get on a sales call are already familiar with your brand and product, so avoid a presentation that's broad, generic, and covers things the prospect likely already knows. Personalization is key: tailor the demo presentation to the prospects use cases and needs.

Balance is ultimately key. Demos should be scripted enough to ensure they cover key points but allow skilled sellers room to pivot based on the prospect’s needs.

The demo environment your reps are showing should illustrate the value story they’re telling.

And prospects should be encouraged to ask questions and interact throughout the process to make each session feel more like a conversation than a presentation.

What to do after the software demo presentation

Closing the loop after a demo is just as important as the demo itself. Here are already several best practices to follow for better outcomes.

• Get Feedback: Ask the prospect what resonated with them and what didn’t, so that you can address concerns and refine your demos in the future.
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• Provide Added Resources: Send over case studies, whitepapers, or relevant blog posts to keep the conversation going.
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• Let Them Get Hands On: Let buyers experience your product for themselves with a proof of concept. 
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• Follow-up: Don’t let the conversation die after the demo. Effective demo follow up with clear next steps and actions can help keep the deal moving forward.

Key tips to remember

• Tailor demos for different Stages: Customize your approach based on where the prospect is in the buying journey.
• Measure success: Track metrics like engagement, feedback, and win rates to refine your demo approach.
• Centralize your Demo tooling: Help keep it simple and give reps one login that lets them demo all your products, key integrations or anything else that is crucial to show buyers. 
• Enable your team: Empower your team scripts that help ensure they stay on message while also giving them the flexibility to tailor to the buyer in front of them. 
• Practice, practice, practice: Ensure that all team members involved in demos are well-trained and continuously refining their skills.

By investing in a more strategic approach to demo presentations, companies like yours can increase deal velocity and build credibility. This, in turn, will ultimately lead to more closed deals.

What about showcasing AI features?

While AI seems like it's everywhere today, demoing AI/ML capabilities of a product still presents a unique challenge.

AI is one of those “need to see it believe it” technologies, and many buyers are trying to make sense of exactly how it works and the value it will bring to their organizations. 

To produce reliable and consistent results from AI, demo accounts need to have a ton of clean, relevant data — which is often not the case for most demo environments.

However, solutions like TestBox are helping organizations generate highly realistic complex data at scale to be able to fuel these AI models and generate those realistic and reliable results.

To effectively demo AI/ML products, it’s essential to:

• Show realistic use cases with relevant data
• Highlight how the product’s AI capabilities can solve specific customer problems

Common software demo presentation pitfalls and their solutions

Too much customization and feature dumping

Challenge: Many sales teams fall into the trap of customizing demos too soon, spending time customizing unqualified deals, or failing to show actual product functionality.

Solution: Save your highly customized demos for later in the process when there’s a higher likelihood of closing the deal. You need to get a feel for what your customer needs before launching into a customized sales approach, just as they need to get a feel for what your software has to offer.

Avoid feature dumping too, and instead, tell a story that helps them see how your product addresses the specific pain points they've mentioned.

Maintenance issues

Challenge: Sales engineers spend countless hours setting up and maintaining demo environments, only to have the data become outdated or irrelevant. This endless cycle of maintenance drains time and energy that could be better spent selling.

Solution: Leverage technology to ensure demo environments are automatically updated with fresh data. This eliminates the need for continuous maintenance, which frees your SEs to focus on high-impact work.

Missing, stale, or generic data

Challenge: We already talked about how demo environments are a pain to manage - which is why many organizations settle for subpar data. But when demo environments use generic or stale data, buyers can’t see how the product solves their specific problems.

Solution: Use a platform that provides automated, realistic data tailored to your key industry’s segments or personas so reps can deliver early stage demos that resonate.

Demo gymnastics

Challenge: It’s not uncommon for organizations to have multiple demo environments to showcase different products or areas of the products. But this requires reps to jump between the environments and ensure they only click in certain areas. Not only makes it more difficult for them to give a good demo, but makes the product appear more complex as well. 

Solution: Look for a demo solution that can centralize your demo needs, and ensure that every feature works, every time. Not only does this make life easier for your reps, but it ensures all product capabilities are showcased consistently.

Inconsistent experiences

Challenge: Different sales reps may use varied demo setups, which leads to inconsistent buyer experiences.

Solution: Standardize your demo environments to ensure a consistent, high-quality experience and value story for every demo. 

Great software demo process = great software demo presentation

Getting your demo presentation right can be the difference between a lost deal and a long-term customer.

As more sales teams recognize the high stakes of demos, the demand for demo automation and technologies that make it easier to showcase your company’s product will continue to grow. 

If you’re struggling with your software demo presentations and suffer from some of the challenges mentioned above, you’re not alone. TestBox powers software demo presentations for companies like Gong, Intuit and Apollo.

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Schedule a demo today to see how TestBox can help you deliver demos that win buyer trust and close more deals.