Have you ever built a bookshelf or assembled an aesthetic workspace from scratch?

After assembling it, you likely value the piece more because you crafted it and were involved in the creation process. In psychology, this refers to the ‘IKEA effect’. It illustrates how people tend to value products they’ve partially created themselves more.

But what does DIY furniture have to do with generating marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)?

More than you might think.

Interactive product demos tap into this same psychological principle, recasting passive observers into engaged potential leads.

When prospects interact with your product via self-paced walkthrough, they’re not just watching – they’re doing. They’re clicking, typing, exploring, and in a way, ‘building’ their own experience. This hands-on interaction creates a sense of ownership, even before they’ve made a purchase 👇🏽

As a result, these leads aren’t just more qualified; they’re more emotionally connected to your product. They’ve experienced its value firsthand, making them more inclined to convert.

In this post, we’ll explore how you can use interactive product demos to generate high-quality leads.

MQLs in B2B SaaS: Most Pressing Challenges

Generating and converting Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) still remains a significant challenge in B2B SaaS. With an average lead-to-MQL conversion rate of only 39% in the B2B SaaS industry, businesses are constantly seeking ways to improve this crucial metric.

This section explores the most pressing challenges faced by SaaS marketers in cultivating high-quality MQLs and outlines strategies to overcome these obstacles.

1. Measuring engagement

According to MarketingSherpa, 79% of MQLs never convert into sales because of poor lead nurturing. 73% of B2B leads are usually not sales-ready, which means you need to nurture them and then direct them towards a sale - over a period of time. To do this, you need data.

Traditional quality marketing lead generation resources fail to provide deep insights into prospective leads. Their intent to buy, their most pressing points, and their engagement level—lead capture forms aren’t the best in capturing this dynamic information.

Luckily, demo automation platforms can be a helpful tool to measure detailed analytics, helpful in lead scoring. With this, you can enhance the lead qualification process by evaluating and prioritizing prospective leads based on their sales readiness, passing high-quality leads to sales.

2. Engaging potential leads

With new software emerging every day, the bar to deliver highly engaging and compelling content for effective lead generation is higher than ever.

A packed e-book full of interesting insights or a lengthy webinar on it's own isn’t going to cut it anymore. These resources, even though helpful, are often long, one-way dialogues that don't relate to buyers' pain points or showcase the product interactively. By using interactive product demos – a more interactive and async approach to showcasing your product – you'll be able to drive highly qualified leads with less effort.

3. Delivering product value

Static images, GIFs, or demo videos give some context to how your product works. But, they don’t go all the way helping leads see it in action. Over time blog posts, emails, webinars, and video demos can get overwhelming and feel disconnected as there is so much for buyers to figure out on their own. Interactive product demos deliver value in an asynchronous environment reducing the mental load on the target lead.

Interactive demos might not be THE solution but it does engage and convert at a higher rate due to a transparent and engaging experience.

And, these demos offer detailed insights into your audience’s interactions which can help you in your lead qualification process. Let's see how you can use them:

8 Ways to Use Interactive Product Demos in Your Lead Generation Strategy

Whether you're exploring use cases for website embeds to conferences, interactive product walkthroughs have widespread use cases:

Websites

1. Make a lasting impression with an interactive product demo

Hook the visitor from the get-go by embedding an interactive product tour on your homepage. Potential leads will be able to see your product in action rather than jumping through the hoops to figure out your key offerings and use cases.

Not only does it engage the leads in the first few seconds, but it also makes you stand out among your competitors. Porter Metrics, a software company that offers cross-channel marketing reporting, could not stand out in a saturated and commoditized market.

They wanted to showcase the product’s value right away to generate higher engagement and stand out in a saturated market. So, they added an interactive tour of their platform right on their homepage. ⤵️

The tour provides a quick product summary in nine steps by inviting viewers to get a sneak peek into the interface and features.

Due to on-brand customization, the demo blends with the page theme and tone. As a result, they achieved a 25% higher engagement rate and cut their content creation time in half.

2. Capture high-intent leads via feature pages

Create and embed short interactive product guides on your feature or use case pages to capture higher-intent leads.

Your homepage is a one-stop for all leads. But your feature and use case pages invite leads with specific and relevant pain points. Someone interested in the invoice generation feature on a Fintech tool website will check out that specific page. These pages show high intent which you can capture by showing each feature in an interactive setting, converting them into marketing-qualified leads.

At Supademo, we launched a new feature, Supa Screenshot—an easy way to capture screenshots and convert them into interactive demos.

The feature page gives the viewer value right away by walking them through a step-by-step process of using the tool. It’s quick, easy, and scalable.

3. Engage readers on product-led blog posts or case studies

Did you know content marketing generates 3x as many MQLs as traditional marketing but costs 62% less?

This is a marketing channel you just cannot miss out on leveraging to convert your MQLs with minimal effort yet impactful results.

With 62.3% of marketers creating interactive content to offer their audience a unique experience, interactive product demos bring you one step closer to delivering such an experience.

A textual walkthrough in a product-led blog post is undoubtedly packed with insights to bring in leads. But it can also overwhelm readers due to the extensive reading and implementation required.

By replacing those walkthroughs with interactive tours, readers (potential lead hey!) are more likely to remember you as you helped them solve a problem right away or offered a unique reading experience.

A high level of engagement and trust results in more marketing-qualified leads.

For instance, if you’re writing a roundup post of the best keyword research tools, you can create an interactive demo to showcase the features of your tool. Here’s an example of how an interactive product demo looks in blog post embeds. ⤵️

Check out this guide on how Supademo uses Supademo across its operations and also see interactive demos embedded within a guide.

Insider tips:

• Identify high-engagement or most relevant use cases or feature pages and create a short, engaging demo using Supademo’s Chrome extension.
• Gate your demos by adding an email capture form after certain steps to bring in more engaged leads.

Social media

4. Interactive social posts

The best part of building an interactive tour is easy repurposing. Depending on the interactive demo software you use, you’ll get exporting options, including GIFs, videos, PDFs, and code embed.

For example, Supademo offers all these exporting options, making it easy to share them across social media channels. Sales and marketing teams can collaborate to leverage these interactive demos on social media, enhancing lead generation and qualification.

You build once and use that demo to bring in more marketing leads.

If you don’t want to redirect your audience, export your demo in a video or GIF format and share it on your socials. Just like this. ⤵️

Our best repurposing channel? It’s X. The platform creates a snippet of the interactive tour within the post, allowing viewers to interact without clicking away.

Such interactivity and ease of access invite viewers to chime in and increase your chances of getting them on board.

Insider tips:

• Pick 1-2 social media channels where your potential leads spend most of their time
• Convert interactive demos in the preferred format—Videos, GIFs, screenshot, or embed (for Twitter)
• Write an engaging copy to post with the repurposed demo and measure the audience’s engagement over time.

Email marketing

5. New product launches

Encourage your audience to get a hands-on experience by sharing a link to interactive demos in your product announcement emails.

With ease of access, you generate more eyeballs on your new feature launch and attract potential leads who are interested in trialing a particular feature.

6. Webinar announcement emails

You might be hosting a webinar where you plan to showcase your tool in action or going as a host to talk about your tool. In both cases, leverage interactive demos by incentivizing your audience to play around with your tool. Share GIFs/snapshots or a link to your product tour to set up context for the viewer.

By being proactive, you give attendees a better understanding of your tool and make you more approachable to them.

7. Follow-up emails

See potential leads lurking around your website? Maybe they check out your case studies page or pricing page.

These little interactions might not be much but it’s something. And, as a marketer, it is your solemn duty to follow up with such low-touch leads.

That’s where follow-up emails come into the picture. Nudge them by mentioning how you found them and then ask questions or talk about their pain points.

Insider tips:

• Create a segment to send targeted email marketing campaigns with relevant interactive demos. Use factors such as demo views or step dropoff history to send a targeted demo.
• If you already have an email list of prospective leads, create benefit-specific interactive demos
• Place email forms throughout the interactive demo to collect email addresses (which you can nurture later on!)

Conferences and trade shows

8. Looping interactive demos at conferences

Engage potential leads by showcasing product walkthroughs at trade shows and conferences.

Industry conferences and shows are jam-packed and offer ample opportunities to get a boost of high-intent MQLs. But, with every vendor fighting to keep people in their booth, how do you stand out?

By offering a self-paced two-way dialogue and interaction with your product. Here’s how one of our customers showcased their product through an interactive demo at Collision Conference 2024.

Build a library of short, interactive product teams to ease conversations with potential buyers at these shows. With interactive demos, your product gets more exposure while you engage in more rich conversations and build relationships with potential leads.

Insider tips:

• Analyze viewers’ behavior (if you used trackable links or email gating) and follow up with specific features they viewed.
• Follow up with more detailed interactive demos that build on the short demos they viewed during the trade shows.
• Use their info to create a personalized interactive demo with dynamic variables.
• Provide an exclusive offer after the conference.

Boost MQLs with interactive product demos

Wouldn’t it be great to see MQLs pouring in like an endless fountain?

Interactive products can boost those numbers and help convert a marketing-qualified lead into a sales-qualified lead. And, to get those numbers up, we’ve enlisted some best practices to get you there:

• Vary your demo lengths depending on the features and use cases. Ideally, short and snappy demos under 5-6 steps catch the most eyeballs.
• Bundle up different use cases or features in demo showcases to offer more flexibility to leads to explore whichever demo best suits them.
• Embedding forms or email inputs throughout the demo to capture interest
• Prepare the same demo in multiple language versions to cater to a diverse set of people at conferences

With Supademo’s ease Chrome extension or Desktop App, that becomes a reality. Try our free Chrome extension today or sign up for a free trial:

• Create and record interactive demos via desktop recording, mobile recording, or image upload for free;
• Generate hotspot text, translate demos, or add synthetic voices with an AI-assistant;
• Make your demos beautiful and appealing with a no-code editor;
• Personalize each demo and generator custom share links;

FAQs