Did you know that over 80% of consumers are more interested in engaging with brands that provide customized experiences? 

If your sales pitch is not up to par, you're missing out on several potential sales opportunities. Furthermore, it impedes your chances of developing long-term customer relationships.

SalesIntel conducted a study that concluded that close to 80% of buyers reject the sales rep's idea of a sales demo at the first attempt. However, if you leverage social media platforms as part of your sales strategy, you can most likely grab the attention of your prospects and offer them specific solutions according to their needs.

Familiarity plays a key role in audience engagement. The more familiar your audience is with your product, the more likely they will engage with you. This means taking the time to understand your audience's needs and tailoring your sales demos to their specific wants and desires. By doing so, you not only increase engagement but also build trust with your audience.

So there you have it! Engaging your audience is crucial in sales demos and can be achieved through strategies such as social media integration and personalization. So read forth this blog post as we delve into this comprehensive guide on engaging your audience and underline the nitty-gritty of the same.

5 Best Ways to Engage Your Audience With Sales Demos

Giving a sales demo can be daunting especially when you have to engage your audience. Creating a memorable buying experience is even harder, especially as you strive to captivate your audience and make it successful. We want to start you off on the right foot by providing 5 effective methods of engaging your customers with sales demos to help ensure a positive outcome for everyone.

Learn how to effectively tailor your presentation using visuals and interactive tools, customize content for your audience’s needs, build anticipation for what's coming next, give the audience just enough information to satisfy their desire to understand what you do but not too much to overwhelm them, and to encourage their participation. 

Section 1: Being a Real Person Who Talks

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A study shows eye-opening results concerning the zero-relation bond between buyers and the sales rep. The stats suggest that:

• 44% of sales reps give up after one “no”
• 22% give up after two “nos”
• 14% give up after three “nos”
• 12% give up after four “nos”

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As much improvement as is needed in this area, businesses can also see it as an opportunity to construct a more humanized mechanism. They can do it by inducing what technology cannot– Be a Human! Here’s how it can be done. 

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1. Add a personal touch to demos

Adding a personal touch to demos is essential in capturing the attention of potential customers. Companies can effectively demonstrate how their product or service can help improve their lives by giving individualized demonstration that speaks to their particular needs and interests. Video narrative overlays and personalized messages can be particularly effective as they give customers a more immersive experience that resonates with them on an emotional level.

2. Unleash the power of video overlays and personalized messages

Including a call-to-action (CTA) at the demo's end is crucial to driving customer conversion. It serves as a reminder for potential customers to take the next step towards making the purchase, whether by signing up for a trial, subscribing to newsletters, or joining up for special discounts and offers.

3. Impact of including a CTA and Humane Content is Irreplaceable

Offering opportunities for customers to send thank-you notes after purchasing reinforces trust between companies and their patrons. This helps create loyal customer relationships built on good faith and appreciation, leading to higher satisfaction rates and increased sales  numbers over time.

‍For example: Check out how Zoho thanks its users and, at the same time, adds a CTA by confirming successful registration and suggesting immediate action.

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Section 2: Commenting and Sharing

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Outsider reach has become more potent and transparent with time in this technology-driven world taken by social media’s “share” feature. Thanks to the concept of engaging and participating in one another’s feeds. According to Forbes, content consumption has increased more than ever. Perhaps a reason why commenting and sharing play an imperative role in engaging your audience amply.

1. Ask for Comments and Feedback at the beginning of demos

Asking for comments at the beginning of demos is beneficial, as it encourages active involvement and participation from audiences, allowing them to ask questions and offer feedback, ideas, and perspectives that can be valuable in further developing the demo. This gives users a greater sense of ownership over the demo and builds trust between the presenter and the audience.

2. Harness the Power of sharing and increase the virality of demos

Sharing demos increases their reach and virality, allowing more people to view and engage with the content. This provides a great opportunity to spread awareness about a product or service while also providing an avenue for gaining valuable insights from those who have seen and interacted with the demo.

For example: Mixpanel, a data analytics tool, has gone viral on youtube just by showcasing its platform's impressive use of live demo videos.

3. Post Participation Can Help Engage Stakeholders

Commenting on demos helps to engage decision-makers and stakeholders by fostering dialogue between these parties and creating an interactive environment where ideas can be exchanged freely. This can be particularly useful when conflicting opinions are present, as it provides an opportunity for constructive conversations rather than heated debates.

For such a hands-on approach and user experience, Demoboost comes to the aid. Here's how?

Demoboost was designed with the buyer’s engagement in mind. Its suite of tools allows users to:

• Curate demos according to the prospect’s needs
• Customize their comments section for easy conversation flow, and
• Use analytics to measure user interactions - all with just a few clicks of a button!
• Moreover, its intuitive user interface makes it simple for anyone - from rookies to veterans - to create engaging content without any coding knowledge required quickly.

Let's decode this process further and see how Demoboost can help in multi-faceted avenues of creating demos for audience engagement.

i. The Importance of Video Narrative Overlays

At Demoboost, we have taken engagement to the next level by providing customers with video overlays integrated directly into their interactive demos.

When customers open a demo for the first time, they can expect to be greeted by an engaging, personalized message from either the CEO or a salesperson. This unique feature is one of the key differentiators that set Demobosst apart from other providers and has resulted in an impressive average Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 89!

Consistent customer feedback suggests that having a human touch in a personalized message form adds value to the overall customer experience. Demoboost helps increase customer engagement and ensures that each customer's journey is tailored to their needs and expectations.

ii. Videos make your Story Powerful & Compelling

Demoboost's video feature is an incredibly effective tool for engaging customers.

• Not only does a video provide a more personal touch by allowing customers to hear a real person talking to them, but it also allows for more detailed information to be shared than what could be conveyed through text alone.
• Additionally, including a CTA at the end of the video further increases engagement by providing customers with an easy way to interact with the presenter and develop a relationship beyond merely viewing content. By connecting with the presenter on LinkedIn, for example, customers can gain more insight into their background and qualifications, which helps build trust and credibility.
• Furthermore, presenting videos rather than relying solely on the text helps customers better understand what is being said due to higher semantic richness. This is because videos provide non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions or body language, which can help convey emotion or emphasis on certain points that would otherwise be lost in written form.

iii. A Thank-you note goes a long way

With Demoboost, businesses can offer the opportunity to send a thank you note to show appreciation and strengthen customer relationships. This simple gesture has the potential to create greater customer loyalty over time by demonstrating that the business values its customers' input and participation. The prospects express gratitude and build deeper connections with the vendor by sending personalized thank-you notes. 

iv. Open Feedback can make OR break it

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Demoboost was designed to provide customers with an immersive and interactive experience, even in the on-demand demo consumption. By enabling potential clients to comment and share feedback at the beginning of the demo, vendors can quickly engage with their audience and build trust. This type of engagement can be especially beneficial when buyers may not have spoken with a sales representative.

• By prompting customers to comment and share feedback during the demo, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction by showing they care even before they meet.
• Furthermore, this type of engagement allows customers to gain more insight into the product or service being demonstrated and provides businesses with real-time feedback that can be used for further improvement.
• The comments and feedback also help build rapport- allowing customers to engage in 1-2-1 Q&A sessions. 

v. Spread the Word- One Share At-A-Time

Demoboost is designed to be an effective tool for increasing engagement with prospects. Businesses can use word-of-mouth marketing to spread their message and increase their visibility by asking them to share the demo with colleagues. Here's how:

• When a prospect shares the demo, they provide key information about decision makers and stakeholders—information that can be used to tailor marketing messages and more effectively engage with those people.
• Additionally, when someone shares the demo with their contacts/ colleagues, it can create buzz around a product or service, resulting in broader internal support for the purchase when it comes time for a decision.

With a wide reach and increased visibility, businesses have more opportunities to start conversations with prospects and build relationships that will lead to sales.

Section 3: Micro-Commitments, CTAs, and Choose Your Journey: A Whirlpool of User-Experience

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CTAs are essential in building engagement and progressing the deal during a demo. They provide an opportunity to create micro-commitments that can lead to a sale. Micro-commitments involve small, attainable goals the buyer agrees to within a specific timeframe.

Micro-commitments are small steps the buyers takes that indicate a vested interest in the product or service offered. They allow buyers to assess how well the product fits their needs and can serve as a metric for salespeople to measure progress and engagement with the deal. Micro-commitment activities include:

• sharing demos with colleagues, 
• commenting on social media posts, 
• visiting a LinkedIn profile, 
• scheduling a demo when ready, etc.

These micro-commitments should be used strategically throughout the sales process. The goal is to create meaningful touchpoints between each stage of the buyer's journey and build trust through continual interaction and value delivery. 

For example, as the buyer progresses through the sales cycle , micro-commitments may focus on:

• Step 1: building rapport. The ask may be to visit SE’s LinkedIn profile and sending them a ‘Thank you note’ 
• Step 2: As deal processes, we might want the buyer to share the demo with their colleagues. At this stage they should be familiar with the product and the vendor can proactively ask them to play a role of a champion. 
• Step 3: Lastly, the CTA is for th internal teams to engage in a conversation in the demo itself. That gives the vendor a front row seat in the internal exchange and helps them reach purchase consensus. 

Because A Customer Is King! they deserve a red carpet experience from the very first contact they have with the vendor. That’s where Demoboost’s unique Choose Your Own Journey capability comes in. 

When businesses offer this cherry-picking experience to the user, the outcomes come in the form of numerous benefits for providing hyper-relevant content to prospects. 

It allows businesses to quickly direct prospects to the most suitable content for their need, ultimately leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. 

• Companies can effectively build customer profiles that allow them to provide highly targeted content by asking a few questions as part of the survey. 
• This allows customers to be presented with the right information at the right time, resulting in more meaningful conversations and a better understanding of their needs. 

Moreover, when you choose your own journey, you provide granular insights into customer preferences and behavior patterns. 

• Companies can use this data to create more personalized experiences in each customer interaction, leading to better customer retention and loyalty. 
• Additionally, it helps businesses develop well-rounded customer journeys tailored to meet each prospect's needs. This enables companies to deliver superior user experience and greatly improves customer satisfaction.

Section 4: Deepen Your Relationship With Personal Insights 

While you build trust by personalizing the demo to fit your prospect's needs, you deepen your relationship by learning as much about them as possible. Doing the necessary research beforehand and understanding their roles, motivations, and professional profiles will help you make a more meaningful connection with them.

Rob Falcone advises that you "get to know your audience as well as possible, down to their profiles. Do the legwork this requires beforehand…"

You have access to a variety of resources that can be used to learn about your buyers and create comprehensive dossiers before each call. This way, you will know enough about each person participating in the product demo to create meaningful connections beyond just business. The more details and facts you know ahead of time, alongside higher semantic richness in conversation topics, will help build a strong rapport between both parties that can last long after the demo is over.

Some Resources to Research Prospects from are:

1. Quora: This is where the issues are framed in the form of comments

2. Medium: This is where you learn about their interests as they write about them

3. Twitter: This is the best place to understand what they think about XYZ.

4. Linkedin: This is where you learn more about their background and see their connections.

5. Google: Google is where you'll find out about their overall online presence. Ex: articles, journals, podcasts, etc.

6. Company website: Their company websites speak a lot about their taste and likings. Discover the news, blogs, videos, and About us section for more insights.

Remember, people want to imbibe a feel-good factor in buying from you. If you can give them that extra assurance by showing that you know where they are coming from, you give yourself an advantage.

Section 5: Maintain Engagement with Storytelling

Storytelling is an invaluable tool for making presentations more engaging and memorable. It has the power to create deeper connections with your audience, as well as align their thinking around the same ideas.

Neuroscientist Uri Hasson of Princeton University conducted a research proving that storytelling elicits powerful chemical, physical, and emotional responses in listeners. In particular, it triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone associated with trust and attachment, which helps listeners open their minds to new ideas and motivates them to take action.

Moreover, when multiple people hear the same Story, their thinking is aligned - making it easier to help multiple prospects in a meeting reach agreement on something. There are immense benefits to using storytelling in a presentation setting.

Wrapping Up!

Engaging your audience is essential for building a sales process that converts. Interactive demos are a great way to drive engagement with your buyers at every step of their buying cycle. Businesses can increase interaction and capture their audience's attention and interest by utilizing strategies such as asking questions, incorporating storytelling techniques, providing examples, and fostering collaboration between the presenter and audience members. 

Doing so will help to ensure that your sales demo generates positive results and leads to more successful sales outcomes. Incorporate these strategies into your presentation to maximize engagement during your next demo. With some practice and dedication to improving each time, you can captivate your audience and make every sale demo a success! 

Until then, if you’ve liked what you read, then book a demo with Demoboost and unlock the power of demos for a thriving business that churns leads, revenue and overall success.