Leveraging interactive demos in sales enablement: A how-to guide

Sales enablement is the process of supporting a sales team with the content they need to engage leads and close deals. Put simply, sales reps use these resources to show potential customers how your platform solves their pain points.

Traditionally, sales enablement meant any type of content that could sell your product (and brand) to customers. This included everything from the classics like PowerPoint presentations and case studies to elaborate video demos, in-depth whitepapers, and industry-specific reports. However, this ‘anything-under-the-sun’ approach to sales enablement comes with a major flaw: content overload. 

According to G2, sales reps waste a staggering 440 hours — or 55 work days — annually just searching for the right content to share with prospects. At the same time, a Salesforce report highlights that 59% of customers prefer brands that are honest about their platforms and services. 

Here’s where interactive demos come into the picture — not only are they easier to create and organize, but they also boost brand credibility by giving users a realistic, hands-on product experience. 

So how exactly do interactive demos help with sales enablement? Let’s find out.

Key takeaways —

• By integrating interactive demos into your sales enablement workflow, you can improve lead engagement, streamline partner onboarding, and drive sales.

• If you’ve got a lot of interactive demos, then build a centralized library for easy access and sharing.

• Maximize the impact of your interactive demos by strategically distributing them throughout the sales funnel like your outbound emails and product education assets.

• You can consider using a demo automation platform — like Layerpath — to speed up demo creation and personalize the experience at scale.

  
  

Why use interactive demos in your sales enablement workflows?

Whether it’s helping marketers match content creation to the speed at which the product teams ship features, or sales teams ensuring personalized follow-ups to nurture leads better — interactive demos can go a long way in streamlining sales enablement.

Here are some benefits of making interactive demos a part of your sales collateral: 

Shortens your sales cycle

G2's 2023 Buyer Behavior Report reveals that 61% of buyers prefer anonymity while researching — they want to explore features and compare pricing without necessarily giving up their contact information. In short, they want to avoid the barrage of sales messages and would prefer reaching out on their own terms when they’re ready to buy. 

This also translates to warmer leads for sales teams – prospects who reach out are already interested and more likely to convert.

With interactive demos, on the other hand, buyers can explore features at their own pace and zero commitment. Also, by adding a CTA to the end of your interactive demo, you can cut through the back and forth of traditional demo scheduling. 

According to Apurv Bansal, the CEO of Zenskar, interactive demos are a low-commitment alternative to traditional demos —

“With live demos being from 30-45 minutes, most people hesitate to book one. An interactive demo, on the other hand, is an easy way to warm a lead and pique their interest—as it can be done at their own pace.”

– Apurv Bansal, CEO and CFO (Zenskar) 

Basically, interactive demos enable sales teams to nudge leads down their sales funnel — without overwhelming them with too many communications.  

Super easy to create (and scale)

With traditional sales enablement content like video demos or sales decks, you have to either compromise quality or quantity. For example, recorded demos can be created quickly, but they don’t look that great. A high-quality video demo, on the other hand, requires an experienced video editor and is resource-intensive.

But that’s not the case with interactive demos. AI-powered interactive demo software allows you to launch engaging demos in minutes. Even better, one marketer can own the entire project with little to zero design dependence. 

And as they come with features like dynamic variables and branching narratives, a single demo can cater to multiple use cases — so you don’t have to create and manage multiple versions for different audiences.

Helps you understand leads

By leveraging data from interactive demos — demo completion rate, drop-off points, and demo flow — you can get a better understating of your leads’ behavior and personalize follow-ups.

<<Embed an interactive demo by Layerpath that has branched narratives>>

For example, someone who explores every feature in your demo is likely much more interested in your product than another person who only spends a couple of minutes skimming through it. 

This can help you customize your follow-up communication — like nudging the first user (hot lead) to book a demo and nurturing the second one (warm lead) with targeted content like case studies. Similarly, if you’re using branched narratives, you can tailor future communications based on the features a lead interacts with. 

Better lead engagement

Interactive demos provide a realistic glimpse into your product's capabilities — this transparency can reduce their skepticism and encourage them to actually try out your product. 

At the same time, interactive elements like personalized learning paths, clickable hotspots, polls, and gamification turn them from passive spectators into active participants. This ensures that they get a deeper understanding of your product’s value proposition.

Here’s what Arjun Parthasarathy, the CEO of FinaHQ (and Layerpath customer), has to say about interactive demos:

“Switching from Loom to Layerpath improved our lead engagement significantly. Our 90-second interactive demos help prospects quickly understand our product.”
– Arjun Parthasarathy, CEO (FinaHQ)

Makes training your partners a breeze

Most SaaS companies leverage partner programs — implementation partners, agencies, resellers, and affiliates — for their impressive conversion rates which often exceed 4x that of traditional paid advertising like Google Ads. However, onboarding and training these partners can be a time-consuming investment.

Interactive demos offer a standardized approach to partner enablement allowing them to explore your platform's features at their convenience. Chapter-based structures, clear progress bars, and even gamification elements keep them engaged and track their learning journey.  

But the benefits go far beyond just onboarding. These same interactive demos can become powerful tools for your partners —

• Internal training: Partners can leverage demos to educate their internal teams, ensuring consistent messaging across their sales force

• Lead nurturing: Partners can share the demos with their prospects and convert them faster — driving growth and creating a sales multiplier effect

  
  

5 ways to distribute your interactive demo and maximize sales engagement

Crafting an engaging interactive demo is just the first step. To maximize its impact, you need a well-defined distribution strategy that takes your demos to the right audience. Here are some ideas to effectively promote your demo and drive prospect engagement —

Set up an interactive demo library

If you’ve got multiple interactive demos (and most companies typically do) then the first step is adding them to a central location — a demo library. Not only does this make managing (and updating) demos easy for your internal teams, but also gives prospects easy access to all your demos.

Besides, this is an organic way to encourage a prospect who enjoyed one demo to explore other features and accelerate their journey toward becoming a customer. There are two ways that you can approach the demo library —

• Set up a step-by-step flow with different interactive demos — like Maxio — and give your audience an overview of the entire product experience

• Add all your demos to a common interactive demo library that’s organized by features and use cases — like Digital Ocean — and allow prospects to explore only the features or products they’re interested in

While the first one is great for products with complex workflows, the second approach might benefit companies that address different ICPs or contain multiple products.

Provide interactive demos as an alternative to live demos

The traditional ‘book a demo’ workflow is not only high-commitment but also high effort. And as we saw earlier, prospects prefer to not share their contact details until they’re serious about buying your software. 

So what can you do instead? Keep them warm until they’re ready to take that call. You can do this by adding ‘Take a Tour’ as a secondary CTA in all the places that you use ‘Book a Demo’ as your primary CTA.

Dooly, for example, has both GET DEMO and TOUR DOOLY as its main call-to-actions (CTAs) — enabling prospects to choose how they’d prefer to explore the platform. 

Add them to your product education assets

As a product marketer in a sales-driven organization, generating leads and empowering your sales team for successful closings is probably one of your daily priorities. And traditional sales enablement content — like landing pages, slide decks, and onboarding documentation — can feel passive and lead to content overload for prospects.

By complementing them with interactive demos, you can make your content more engaging for users and hold their interest for longer. Plus, you get all the other benefits like automated lead capture and better lead qualification.

Collect leads with semi-gated interactive demos

If one of your goals with demos is lead capture, then accompanying them with interactive demos might help you get better results. All you have to do is make your interactive demo ‘semi-gated.’

This means allowing leads to explore some of your platform features without any commitment. As they delve deeper and express interest in advanced features, you can use a lead capture form to collect their email address before proceeding.

Here’s how this approach can benefit you —

• By initially offering open access, you reduce the barrier to entry and build trust with potential customers

• By requesting contact information only when they get deeper into the platform’s features, you only capture leads who show genuine interest in your platform (the hot ones)

A good example of a SaaS company with semi-gated interactive demos is Jellyfish — which allows you to explore more than half the demo before requesting your email address. 

Link to interactive demos in your emails

Another way to distribute your interactive demos is by adding them to your emails — both first-time outreaches and nurturing workflows. By using interactive demos in sales follow-up or onboarding emails, you can pique your audience’s interest and give them an easy way to explore your product.  

At Layerpath, all our product onboarding emails include links to interactive demos to show users how the product works and help them get set up faster.

Mark Bishop (the director at Wytlabs, a marketing agency), on the other hand, uses interactive demos in his outbound emails to improve engagement:

“Our interactive demos are integrated into our email marketing campaigns. We send targeted emails to segments of our database who have shown interest in similar products or solutions, including a link to the demo with a strong call-to-action.”

– Mark Bishop, Director (WYTLABS)

Why create interactive demos with Layerpath?

Layerpath gives SaaS businesses everything they need to create, personalize, and track interactive demos — in one AI-powered platform.

What does this mean for you —

• Create 10x faster interactive demos with zero dependence on your design or engineering teams

• Personalize the demo flow for each ICP with branched tours and dynamic variables 

• Collect leads quickly with low-friction lead capture forms and CTA buttons

• Track demo engagement rates and understand how users interact with your product

Curious to learn more? Sign up for free and see how Layerpath can help you launch an interactive demo in under an hour.  

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

1. What is the difference between a sales demo and a product demo

While both sales and product demos help you showcase your platform, they have different goals and focal points. Sales enablement demos prioritize benefit-driven storytelling, highlighting the "Aha!" moments — to relate to your ICP’s pain points and demonstrate your product’s value.

A generic product demo, on the other hand, takes a step-by-step approach and aims to show users how to perform an action or use a particular feature. While they’re great for user onboarding and answering customer questions, they don’t necessarily translate into immediate sales impact.

2. How to evaluate an interactive sales demo? 

Interactive demos are great sales enablement tools, but only if done right. Here’s a quick checklist to test the effectiveness of your interactive demo:

• Does the demo prioritize solving a specific use case and include at least one AHA moment?

• Does the interactive demo flow well — and include clear navigation, intuitive design, and a smooth user experience?

• Have you added interactive elements like click-through walkthroughs, polls, or forms to keep viewers engaged?

• Have you added a relevant call-to-action (with a good hook) at different places in your interactive demo?

By carefully evaluating these aspects, you can ensure your interactive sales demo goes beyond a simple feature showcase and actually engages leads.