A decade ago, it seemed unlikely that customers could get a hands-on experience with software products before purchasing them.

Today, it’s a reality. 

Interactive demos have come a long way from where they began. But what does their future look like?

In this article, we will predict the top five trends that will shape the interactive demo space. So, grab your favorite drink and dive in!

What is an interactive demo?

An interactive demo is a self-guided, clickable software walkthrough that gives people a hands-on way to explore your product. It enables a quick tour-and-try of your product and is a key driver of product-led growth.

Have you ever signed up for a video game and been greeted by step-by-step instructions and prompts that helped you along the way? That’s interactive demos for you. They nudge the viewer to explore the various functionalities of your product and help them understand its value quickly.

Interactive demos mimic your actual product and include elements such as buttons, forms, tooltips, hotspots, etc., to make the experience more immersive and engaging for your prospects.

Source: gong.io

Benefits of interactive demos

Some of the key benefits of interactive demos in today’s product-led growth world include:

Faster product value realization

Interactive demos don’t just tell how nifty your product is.

They provide a very hands-on way for your prospects to see it in action. By giving helpful context along the way, these demos enable prospects to realize the value of your product and get to their aha moment sooner.

Shorter sales cycles

Interactive demos allow buyers to quickly explore the product they’re interested in without going through the various stages of a typical sales cycle. This drastically reduces the time it takes to make informed buying decisions and go from prospect to paying customer. 

High website conversions

Your website is your storefront.

When you embed an interactive demo on your website, prospects see the true value of your product. When these prospects convert to leads, their intent is high, and they will likely become paying customers.

5 interactive demo trends to look out for in 2024

Now that we’ve understood what interactive demos are, let’s peek into our crystal ball to see what trends will shape the interactive demo space for this year!

1. Interactive demo centers

Demo centers are a library of focused interactive demos categorized by use case, features, or even product line. 

Source: Cognism

We’ll begin to see more software vendors adopt this trend because the advantages of creating an interactive demo center are multifold:

Create a proof of concept (POC)

An interactive demo center empowers your product champion to create a proof of concept and get internal buy-in from their executive team much faster. 

Efficient customer education

Interactive product demo centers enable better and faster customer education. In case of any product queries, your customers can quickly head to the demo center to find answers and learn about new features as well. 

Higher product adoption

Having access to a repository of interactive demos and product tours smoothes the learning curve and boosts product adoption. This way, your customers can be assured that they are not investing in software that’s purchased but never used. 

Easier onboarding

When you’ve created an interactive demo center with all the information your product users need, it’s easier to get them onboarded the first time.

This appeals to the modern buyer who wants to start seeing value from day one and also reduces the burden on your customer success teams.

2. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) demos

Whether AI is coming for your job or not is a chicken-and-egg question, but what we know to be true is that AI will revolutionize the world of interactive demos. 

Here are a few possibilities when AI meets interactive demos:

Demo content creation

AI can help you instantly whip up a compelling demo script relevant to your prospect by analyzing product descriptions, images, videos, and customer data.

This will drastically reduce the time and effort required for manual content creation and becomes a game changer when you want to personalize demos at scale.

Personal demo assistant

Do you want to send a quick summary of the demo call you’ve just had with a promising prospect? AI can do it for you in seconds and top it off with auto-generated transcripts. 

It won’t be long until we start seeing AI demo assistants identify areas of interest for your prospects based on signals during the product demo. Based on this, your sales team can craft a narrative and focus on what appeals to the prospect. 

Translate demo content

As software vendors scale globally, having a multi-lingual product becomes critical. With the power of AI, it’ll become possible to quickly translate the content within your interactive demo to the chosen language without having to recreate it from scratch. 

Source: Storylane

Convert text to audio AI

More interactive demo vendors will begin to support AI voice generators that can seamlessly transform written text into voiceovers. This helps create an immersive experience and has a bigger impact. 

3. Choose your own adventure with personalized demos

The demand for personalized interactive demos is on the rise in the B2B market and will continue to accelerate in 2024.

Given that B2B buying cycles are complex and often involve more than six people on average — each with unique needs and requirements. Generic anything will no longer make the cut for this buying committee. 

B2B buyers will now keenly look for vendors who understand their specific needs and can create personalized product demos for their use cases.

They want to see how the product addresses their pain points, solves their challenges, and aligns with their business objectives.

To successfully meet these expectations of the modern buyer, software vendors will have to customize the content, features, and workflows within the interactive demo. 

As a way to offer a deeper level of personalization, we’ll begin to see interactive demos borrow the concept of choose your own adventure (CYOA) from the kids’ book series that gained popularity in the late 1970s. These books offered multiple storylines, allowing readers to choose and shape the plot. 

Source: Empire

The concept has since expanded into video games and other forms of interactive media.

CYOA within demos offers buyers a personalized and immersive experience, allowing them to control what they explore at various points throughout the demo. They can decide which features or use cases to explore, making the demo more engaging and relevant to their needs.

From a vendor’s perspective, CYOA interactive demos offer valuable insights into buyer behavior. By analyzing the choices made by buyers during the demo, vendors can gain a deeper understanding of their pain points, priorities, and areas of interest. This data can then be leveraged to personalize sales and marketing efforts.

4. Real-time collaboration within demos

We’ll start seeing more integrations that support real-time collaboration between the vendor and the buyer – within the interactive demo. It allows for seamless communication and interaction between the vendor and the buyer during the demo process. 

This trend is driven by the need for vendors to stay closely connected with their viewers, addressing any questions or concerns they may have in real time.

Such integrations enable buyers to ask questions, provide feedback, and engage with vendors in real time, leading to a better understanding of the product being demoed. It also enhances the overall buying experience and can lead to quicker decision-making.

Some possible real-time collaboration tools that could be integrated into interactive demos include the following. 

Live chat

With live chat, buyers can directly message and ask vendors questions if they need clarification without going back and forth via email.

Source: Storylane

Annotation

With annotation, buyers can mark certain points of interest in the demo to return to later. This could be used to highlight certain features or functionality that the buyer wants to learn more about or provide feedback directly within the demo interface.

Video conferencing

Buyers can join a live video call with vendors from within the interactive demo and ask questions in real time.

By integrating these collaboration tools, vendors can provide buyers with a more engaging and interactive experience. It can also help vendors better understand buyers’ needs and pain points, leading to more successful sales and better customer relationships. 

“I believe that live chat and annotation tools are around the corner and they will significantly boost user engagement. AI will play a leading role in shaping these experiences. Soon after, AI will not just enhance interactivity but also smartly adjust the demo’s flow based on real-time chats and annotations. This evolution promises a more personalized and effective demo experience”

Natasja Bax,
Founder, The DemoScene

5. Emphasis on enhanced data analytics 

This year, there will be a stronger emphasis on enhanced data analytics and tracking user interactions within interactive demos. Using advanced analytics tools, companies will leverage this data to gain valuable insights into customer preferences and behavior.

By analyzing the data collected during interactive demo interactions, companies can tailor their follow-up communication to potential customers.

For example, suppose a user spends significant time exploring a particular feature in the demo. In that case, the vendor’s sales team can customize their messaging to highlight that specific feature and its benefits.

They can also share case studies of customers who utilized that feature, creating a more personalized and compelling follow-up approach. This targeted approach increases the chances of effectively engaging prospects and converting leads into paying customers.

Furthermore, the data collected from interactive demo interactions can provide valuable insights into common trends and patterns. This information can inform various aspects of a company’s strategy, including product development, marketing campaigns, and sales strategies.

Understanding how customers interact with the demo can reveal which features or aspects generate the most interest, helping to refine the product offering and align it more closely with the target audience’s needs and preferences.

Companies can continuously analyze and optimize their interactive demos by adopting a data-driven approach to drive better outcomes. They can identify bottlenecks where customers drop off, allowing them to make improvements to enhance the overall user experience.

Adopt interactive demos for tomorrow’s customer expectations

As technology advances and product-led growth continues to become mainstream, we can expect interactive demos to become an even more integral part of marketing and sales strategies, driving higher customer engagement and conversion rates. 

The future of interactive demos is bright, and trends are constantly evolving to meet customers’ changing needs and preferences. Software vendors proactively embracing these trends can stay ahead of the curve and create impactful demo experiences.

Ever wondered how AI is shaping the three biggest marketing automation trends? Learn here.

Edited by Shanti S Nair