In today's modern, digital-first business world, old live, person-based selling no longer fits the buyer’s needs and demands. Today, buyers have become used to on-demand buying through consumer purchasing habits. For example, Amazon, Instacart, Zillow, and others have given buyers the gift of on-demand buying. This is why demo automation is becoming the fastest growing software category, according to G2. Demo Automation is specifically a game-changer for software professionals in sales, marketing, sales engineering, and customer success - any role who’s chief responsibility is customer or future customer (prospect) facing. In this blog post, we'll delve into what demo automation is, who should consider it, how it can be used, and the myriad of benefits it offers.
First, What the heck is Demo Automation?
Demo automation refers to the process of using technology to streamline and enhance the delivery of product demonstrations. It involves leveraging software tools like ReachSuite.io to automate various aspects of the demo process, from discovery question surveys, demo customization, to delivery and tracking. Essentially, demo automation empowers businesses to deliver personalized, engaging demos at scale, while also saving time and resources.
Who Should Consider Demo Automation?
Demo automation is well-suited for software companies across all industries who sell to other businesses. Whether you're a SaaS startup or an established enterprise software provider, demo automation will revolutionize your sales and marketing efforts. Specifically, it's beneficial for:
Sales Professionals (AEs and SDR/BDRs): By automating demos, sales teams can streamline their sales cycles, reach a wider audience faster, and focus their efforts on high-value prospects.
See how sales professionals at ChurnZero use demo automation and buyer enablement to win more deals, faster.
Marketing Teams (PMMs and Demand Gen): Demo automation enables marketing teams to create interactive, on-demand demos for demand generation campaigns, effectively engaging potential buyers and driving conversions.
Learn more about Ambition's demand generation strategy using demo automation and buyer enablement to significantly boost qualified pipeline generation.
Sales Engineers (SEs): With demo automation, sales engineers can automate persona-based demos, freeing up time to focus on strategic opportunities vs. providing tailored solutions to pre-qualified prospects.
See how sales engineers use guided sandbox automation and buyer enablement to instantly scale POCs across the commercial business segment.
Customer Success Managers (CSMs): the unique growth driver for software businesses today is that they are based on recurring revenue, which means a customer is also a prospect when it's time to expand their usage or renew their contract. This puts CSMs in a unique position to help demonstrate new products, features, or functionality across their customer base without having to get in an uncomfortable sales conversation or pull in the AE / SE team.
How Can Demo Automation be Used?
Demo automation can be utilized throughout the sales and marketing funnel. Some common use cases include:
Demand Generation Demos: Create interactive demos on your website to educate new buyers about your product's features and benefits. These demos serve as powerful tools for lead generation and nurturing. Platforms like ReachSuite.io bake in automated discovery question surveys which tailor the automated demos being given to each unique buyer.
Mid-Funnel Sales Demos: Automate demos to support sales efforts in the mid-funnel stage. By providing prospects with personalized demos earlier in the sales cycle, sales teams can sell wider into accounts with fewer meetings, accelerating the sales process.
In SMB or Commercial sales, demo automation helps sellers to automate the initial discovery and overview demo so they can focus solely on strategic opportunities with high closing propensity
In Enterprise sales, demo automation helps these sellers to get deeper and wider into the buying committee significantly faster and with less individual meetings, which results in shorter time to close.
Sales Engineering Persona-Based Demos: Tailor demos to specific buyer personas or industries using demo automation. Sales engineers can leverage pre-built templates and workflows to deliver customized demos that resonate with each prospect's unique needs and challenges.
Benefits of Demo Automation
The adoption of demo automation offers full funnel benefits and incredible ROI results, including:
Increased Customer Acquisition Efficiency: Automating the early demo process reduces manual effort and saves time for sales & sales engineering teams, enabling them to focus on higher-value activities.
Wider Deal Scalability: With demo automation, businesses can scale their demo efforts across wide enterprise organizations, reaching a larger audience without sacrificing quality or personalization.
Improved Conversion Rates: Interactive and personalized demos are more engaging and persuasive driving buyers to the “Aha” moments faster, leading to higher conversion rates and faster sales cycles. Additionally, we know 70% of buyers want a self-serve demo option (TrustRadius, 2022) - by giving buyers what they want, you become the leader in evaluations, which increases your competitive win rates.
Data-Driven Insights: Demo automation platforms provide valuable analytics and insights into prospect engagement, allowing sales and marketing teams to optimize their demo strategies, messaging, and product roadmap for better results.
The Final Scoop
In conclusion, demo automation is revolutionizing the way software companies sell and market their products. By leveraging technology to automate and personalize the demo process, software companies can drive greater efficiency, scalability, and ultimately, success in today's competitive market landscape.
ReachSuite is a full Funnel Buyer Enablement platform that powers our customers to transform their internal demo sandbox into a no-login required, guard-railed, and guided demo experience. Revenue teams across the full buyer’s life cycle - such as, marketing, sales, sales engineering, and CS - rely on ReachSuite’s platform to provide on-demand discovery questionnaires, demos, and trial sandboxes. When our customers adopt ReachSuite, they see an immense ROI in reducing CAC, improving time to close, and increasing win rates.
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