Look around and you’ll see them; things that many people do, but relatively few do well. Whether attempting home improvements, cooking, dancing or ordering wine in a restaurant, most of us know we’re not experts but due to necessity (trying to save money), foolish pride (trying to impress someone) or both, we make the effort.
The same phenomenon exists when it comes to b-to-b demand creation tactics. Despite their ubiquity, we commonly get questions about how to improve their performance, including when/how they should be used and for whom. To address these queries, SiriusDecisions launched a series of “deep dives” focused on optimizing a range of demand creation tactics. In this issue, we take a closer look at demos.
The term “product demonstrations” has often been used as a catchall for a wide range of evaluation activities. SiriusDecisions has defined three categories of product demonstrations, all of which are designed to give prospective customers different looks at a vendor’s offerings and capabilities:
Self-guided demos are effective at the beginning of a buying cycle, as they save sales from wasting time on prospects that are only gathering information. These demos are comprised of a narrated series of screen shots or interactive vignettes that illustrate business issues and how a particular offering can ease a pain point or help achieve a vision. Self-guided demos usually leverage multimedia technology, such as Flash or video, to make them visually engaging and interactive. We recommend that guided demos are aligned to key customer segments such as industries, geographies or job roles; messaging, vernacular and visuals should be specific and relevant to the segment.
In-person demos are usually leveraged during the middle stage of the buying cycle to help reps articulate a value story, and to demonstrate alignment between the prospect’s specific needs and the proposed solution. Their configuration typically requires a great deal of effort; an engineer or rep must be able to interpret a buyer’s business issues/needs, then tailor the demo accordingly. Because it’s nearly impossible to create a demo that can target all opportunities, demos must allow a sales engineer or specialist to customize the data, fields, content or features to a prospect’s unique situation.
The fact that demos are used in almost every b-to-b sales process doesn’t mean that most – or even many – organizations maximize their effectiveness. Following are the five most common mistakes we see organizations make when it comes to creating and executing demos:
Product or solution marketing must play a critical role not only in demo creation, but also in enabling sales to effectively deliver demos by architecting the storyline and creating content. Sales operations or field marketing typically owns the infrastructure, process and support of the online demo center and the internal demo library. These teams are also responsible for defining sales requirements and driving the enterprise-wide demo strategy, and collaborating with product/solution marketing to ensure alignment with sales’ needs.
While demos are a necessary component of any b-to-b high-tech sales process, they are often overlooked by product/solution marketing as a tactic for sales enablement, and by sales management as a distinct behavior that must be cultivated through dedicated training and skills development. When either – or both of these – occur, chances are you’ll be demonstrating an inability to understand your buyer’s business issues, and to communicate to them effectively. Talk about the best laid plans backfiring.