The last few years in SaaS have proved buyers are looking for better ways to self-educate when researching software solutions. And 83% of buyers don’t believe websites provide all the information they need to fully understand a product (SaaS Buyer Report, Tourial, 2022). Because of this, there’s a gap in buyer education created by the amount of time it’s taking prospects to find information to then feel comfortable enough to take the next step (like booking a live demo or purchasing).
Removing friction and making it easier for your buyers to understand your product is crucial, and we’ve seen a lot of companies address this with product demo centers — a place where buyers can explore all your product content at their convenience.
What is a Demo Center?
A product demo center is a personalized content hub for your prospects that showcases the features and functions of your product. They enable your buyers to find the most important product information they need, right when they need it.
Demo Centers show your product’s “how”
People are so desensitized to fluffy messaging and product abstractions. Buyers want to see your product and understand how it works to decide whether it’s a good fit to solve their needs. With a demo center easily accessible to your buyers, you can give them a glimpse into your product and back up what you’re saying on your website, ads, emails, etc.
Demo Centers provide tailored experiences
A key advantage of a demo center is the ability to offer tailored experiences to your prospects. Demo Centers can be customized to cater to the specific needs and interests of each individual visitor. By segmenting your audience based on factors like industry, persona, or feature preferences, you can provide a more personalized journey. This tailored approach ensures your prospects can access the product information most relevant to them, making it faster and easier for them to understand your product.
Demo Centers can give you Discovery Data
In addition to personalized experiences for your buyer, Tourial Demo Centers give you valuable engagement data that you can use as Discovery Data. As visitors interact with the content, they leave behind a trail of insights that can be harnessed for better understanding — so you can gain valuable insights into which content pieces are most engaging to your audience.
The Discovery Data can help you spot trends, pain points, and identify areas prospects commonly seek information (or which areas they aren’t as interested in).
Demo Centers generate more qualified leads
Demo Centers create an overall better experience for your buyers. Instead of forcing them to book a sales demo just to see your product, you can encourage them to explore your product in a demo center (whether that’s with interactive click-through demos, product videos, or other product content). Then, when someone is ready to talk to sales, they’re already familiar with your solution, leading to better conversations.
Demo Centers help differentiate from competitors
Your product demo center can also help differentiate your solutions from your competitors. You can provide personalized experiences based on prospects’ industry, persona, feature interest, and more — and then dive deeper into your unique features/data/integrations/etc.
Ways you can use a Demo Center
We think it’s safe to say that almost any B2B or SaaS company can benefit from leveraging demo centers, but here are some common use cases:
On your website to address multiple personas/verticals/use cases
Demo centers make it easy to serve product content catered to different personas or business verticals because buyers can find and select what’s important to them. In some cases, demo centers can provide prompts for visitors that then serve the content relevant to their answers. Talk about personalized!
In your targeted sales outreach
Sales teams can send hyper-relevant demo centers to targeted prospects by focusing on the features or functions that address their specific needs. For example, a rep sends a demo center all about their solutions for Fintech to a Fintech prospect, along with the relevant integrations based on their tech stack.
As a part of your ABM campaigns
Similar to the above, adding a link to a Demo Center to your segmented email campaigns make it even easier for buyers to see the product content they want without having to wade through the stuff they don’t.
Self-serve exploration at live events
Some people won’t even approach a booth at a conference in fear they’ll be bombarded by sales (sorry, sales folks), or maybe someone can’t be available the entire time. Providing a demo center at your booth creates a self-serve experience so passersby may explore on their own with no pressure.
4 great examples of Demo Centers
1. Quinyx
Quinyx launched their Demo Center featuring videos and interactive demos built with Tourial. When a visitor lands on the experience, they’re able to self-select into the industry that fits their business and solutions they’d like to explore.
2. D-tools
D-tools features several product tours on their D-Tools Cloud solution for visitors to explore. Each interactive tour is focused on a specific feature or workflow, making it easy for prospects to get bite-sized product info based on the feature they’re interested in.
3. Keyfactor
Keyfactor features video product demos in their demo center so website visitors can get a glimpse of their Crypto-Agility Platform. It’s also featured in their Product dropdown for easy access.
4. Tourial
We practice what we preach! The Tourial website features a prominent Demo Center link in the main navigation and dives into different features (like buyer engagement data), integrations, and ways to implement interactive demos.
Tourial: Making Demo Centers Easy
At Tourial, we understand the power of Demo Centers in B2B SaaS. That’s why we’ve developed a platform that makes building Demo Centers a breeze and allows you to use whatever product content you have (interactive demos, product videos, pdfs, etc.). Plus, you can get contact-level Buyer Engagement Data, so you can understand what your prospects care about as they interact with your demo center.
No matter how you choose to build a demo center—whether custom or using a tool—they are a powerful way to provide the content your prospects are looking for in an all-in-one experience. Because less friction means easier education for your buyers. And better educated buyers leads to better pipeline.