Introduction

During what stage in your sales cycle are prospects given an opportunity to see your software in action? An extended sales cycle that distances your product from prospects could be wasting your time and money on unqualified prospects as well as losing sales revenue from hot prospects that quickly turn cold. The sooner you are able to show your product in action, the more likely you are to qualify hot leads and close sales.

One of my clients was the Marketing Director for a software company in the storage technology industry. The product was a robust, comprehensive solution with a five-step sales cycle that did not allow prospects to view the actual product until the last step. Her sales team was spending countless hours qualifying leads and accessing their needs without ever showing the product.

She came to me looking for a sales tool that would enable consistent communication and could be used across multiple platforms. After reviewing their sales process, it was obvious that too much time was spent on front-end discussions without showcasing the product itself. People don’t buy what they don’t understand and the longer you keep a lead in your sales pipeline the colder the lead gets. By waiting to show prospects the actual product, the company was spending time and money on unqualified leads and losing hot leads because they lost interest before ever seeing the product.

I worked with the Marketing Director to identify her products top three features or wow factors. No matter how many features your software may have, there’s always at least one feature that makes it stand out from your competition. Usually, it’s the feature that can help prospects save time or money. Once the wow factors were identified, we created a six-minute automated demo that simulated the product’s functionality showcasing the wow factors with a professional voiceover.

The link to the demo was given prime real estate on the product page of the company’s Web site, placed on marketing CDs and in emails to prospects. While the original sales process had kept prospects in the dark about how the software looked and functioned, the automated demo instantly changed the sales process by showing prospects the product within the first six minutes of the sales cycle.

Within days of using the demo, the Marketing Director recognized a noticeable shift in their sales process. Instead of the lengthy five-step process, the sales cycle became a three-step process because less time was spent accessing prospect needs. By putting a lead generation form at the end of the demo, prospects immediately qualified themselves. The six-minute automated demo had not only shortened the sales cycle, but increased sales force efficiency by 20 percent.

According to a recent survey conducted by KnowledgeStorm and published on MarketingSherpa.com, Web-generated leads that are not contacted within 24 hours by phone are less likely to call for more information or take a call from a company after four days. 96 hours—that’s less than a week for a prospect to go from “extremely interested” to “don’t call me.”

This confirms that the first hours of your sales cycle are the most critical. An automated demo can give prospects a high-level understanding of your product during this critical time period, plus offer an effective sales tool that they can pass around to other team members and decision makers.

An automated demo not only initiates and shortens the sales cycle it adds numerous benefits to your overall marketing mix. It works as a multipurpose sales tool that can be used on multiple fronts. It’s an easy way to start a conversation with a prospect. Instead of emailing a lengthy message that lists all of your products selling points, you can send a link to a demo that engages the prospect on various levels by actually showing what your software can do. An automated demo can be looped on a monitor at trade shows so that attendees can see and hear your product in action right there in the trade show aisle.

One of the most significant benefits of an automated demo is consistent messaging. Regardless of the size of your sales force, there is a good chance that each member of your sales team uses a different sales approach. An automated demo gets everyone on the same page and promotes product awareness both internally and externally. Within six-minutes, every employee from sales to HR can understand your product’s true value.

What software executives need to understand is that prospects do not need or want to see software products in their full capacity. Focusing on the top three features that provide the most benefit to the prospect and showing the features in action will do more to sell the product than any a 20-screen PowerPoint. Sales presentations bloated with marketing language and fraught with flashy animation distract the prospect from the value of your solution. Showing prospects your software early in the sales cycle results in improved sales force efficiency and higher close rates. The sooner you let prospects see what they’re buying, the sooner they can make a purchasing decision.

About the Author:

J.C. Stites is the founder and CEO of Autodemo LLC (www.autodemo.com), the leading developer of software demos. With more than fifteen years experience building product-centric demos, JC is an expert when it comes to the design and production of automated demos. Founded in 1998, Autodemo helps software companies initiate the sales cycle, generate leads, and increase marketing ROI. Visit Autodemo’s booth at this year’s Software 500 Marketing Perspectives Conference in Santa Clara, California.