The B2B sales industry is going through somewhat of a revolution at the moment, which is excellent news if you’re looking for new ways to boost revenue and improve the efficiency of your sales efforts. The products and tools surrounding the B2B sale process are becoming more sophisticated with each passing year, which means that there are now more ways than ever to improve the customer experience and deliver more value through your products and services.
One area that has seen considerable innovation in recent times are product demo platforms, which has been crying out for innovation for quite some time, especially with the SaaS market currently valued at approximately $145.5 billion and growing by 18% each year.
Until now, companies have had to rely on “old world” solutions when conducting product demos, including pre-recorded videos, live streams over generic screen sharing tools, and R&D-oriented demo environments. If you have ever conducted a sales demo using one of these methods, you will know just how stressful they can be and how prone these platforms are to failing – which is not good news if you’re trying to make a sale.
What to Look for in a Demo Platform
1. Infrastructure
When hosting a product demonstration, you want to minimise the likelihood of technical hiccups wherever possible. Let’s face it; there is nothing more embarrassing than having your computer break down or internet disconnect while in the middle of a presentation. Plus, it makes it extremely difficult to turn the whole thing around once technical mishaps occur, drastically reducing the chances of converting that particular prospect.
Thankfully, there are cloud-based platforms on the market, such as first such platform Walnut, which enables sales teams to present their product demonstrations in an encapsulated environment on the cloud that promises zero downtime and absolutely no loading concerns.
2. Flexibility and Ease of use
Most of the older generation of sales demo platforms are cumbersome and difficult to operate. On top of this, they usually require some sort of coding knowledge which means that the product demo needs numerous teams to be involved in making the presentation go as planned. Unfortunately, this means that sales teams have to rely on back-end departments such as R&D, graphic design, and IT if they want to make any changes, which can cause friction internally, not to mention the time and resources this wastes.
With this in mind, some modern demo platforms are designed to be 100% codeless in order to overcome this issue, which means that sales teams can reclaim complete creative control over the sales process, eliminating the dependency on other teams.
3. Customisability
Personalisation should be a priority in B2B sales. Thus, during the sales demo, you must find ways to personalise the presentation so that the features and capabilities of your software are relevant to the prospect’s particular set of wants and needs. With a sales experience platform, sales agents can tailor demos for each client niche targeted.
This results in a vastly improved experience for the prospect as each demo is created specifically to focus on the value they will receive if they purchase your service.
4. Data-collection
Last but not least, you should look for a demo platform that gives you the ability to collect data and analyse insights so you can understand which features are the most important for your prospects.
This allows sales agents to create more meaningful interactions that bring value and gives a platform that leaders can use to optimise team performance and boost future sales demo conversion rates, this allows users to collect data on the usage of the demos in order to view where improvements can be made.
Avoid the Mistake of Overinvesting in the Pipe
Unfortunately, many SaaS companies spend the majority of their budget on marketing in an attempt to get people to attend a demonstration of the product, only for 90% of them to fail. This is a huge waste of resources and can sometimes prevent a company from scaling its operations, even if it has a killer product.
After all, for SaaS companies, the product demo is an essential part of the sales process. It gives you a unique opportunity to demonstrate the value of your product to potential clients, so they can see how your solution solves their problems and helps them be more successful.
However, as the business world becomes more digitised, B2B software sales are rapidly shifting away from traditional field sales to remote sales typically conducted using the phone, email, and online meeting tools. While this has worked reasonably well for some companies, the fact of the matter is that these tools are simply not designed for this task, and they often fall short of the mark when it comes around to conducting a demo and attempting to sell your product. Fortunately, a new generation of online meeting tools is arising that provide use-case-specific advantages over these more generic platforms.
Summary
Finally, the B2B sales industry is becoming enriched with more sophisticated tools and high-value platforms that help to boost sales and increase conversions.
If you’re serious about improving your software sales performance, then you simply have to move away from generic screen-sharing tools such as Zoom and Skype and opt for the new generation of online sales experience platforms that are purpose-built to help your business succeed and enhance your sales demo success rate.
