How can Product Marketing help deliver winning demos?

If you’re a sales crusader hunting for million-dollar targets, you know what it takes to win and conquer your sales funnel. Leads are never proportionally enough to deliver the assigned targets. We all have been there! But when the leads are far and a few, it is all the more important to take help from all quarters of life.

How does Marketing change the game?

Enters Marketing – Underrated, diligent, and dedicated servant of this game. Marketing has evolved from the good old days of being a mere branding and awareness tool to one that creates demand and drives revenue in real terms – Pipeline, potential, deals, expected revenue, customer lifetime value and so on.  It now encompasses organic demand generation, paid Ads, Product Marketing, Revenue Operations and Event marketing. Different facets of this team come together to deliver what is needed to sell more and more.

While having more leads–> Pipeline à Revenue is how organizations reflect and gauge the performance. Lower revenue is often attributed to quality and quantity of leads. Primarily because it is easier to blame or credit the tangibles. One that cannot be measured doesn’t exist in the real world. Not much emphasis is given to identifying better ways to nurture these leads. Rather the focus is on more leads, because it just nonchalantly fits into the numbers game.

Importance of Middle funnel conversion

Just like in the world of marketing, improving website conversion rate gives you better returns than paying for increased traffic. Similarly, sales can close more deals if leads are nurtured effectively. Just to be clear, this is not only Sales’ prerogative to do so. ‘It takes a Village to win a deal’, this was once said by a wise leader in my previous organization. I keep this close to my heart as I keep learning new tricks and ways to navigate in this SaaS market.

Recently, I read this book – ‘Product Demos that Sell: How to deliver Winning SaaS Demos’ by Close.io Founder Steli Efti. It’s a book primarily geared for SaaS startup founders and sales representatives. However, as a Product Marketer, I believe it’s important to stay close to the product and the sales cycle. And hence, I took a spin on reading the book from a Product Marketing point of view. I wanted to see how the magic of marketing, with a focus on Product Marketing, could give Sales an extra boost in closing those demos and deliver a higher winning percentage.

But why is this book important?

Sales reps and founders will feel right at home with the book, while Product Marketers may be a bit more on the outside. It’s lucid, packed with real-life challenges, common scenarios, and clever solutions straight from the founder’s mouth.

Before I go on and summarize this book, let’s understand why this topic is so important. In a nutshell, why does closing more demos matter? I see importance of efficient middle funnel conversion because of 3 reasons:

• You get more deals from the same top-of-the-funnel leads
• You get to know the buying committee better, peeling back the market’s curtain to learn who is buying, what they’re buying, and how they’re buying it
• You establish a feedback loop that keeps on giving. The more demos you close, the more you learn about your ideal customer profile (ICP).

With heaps of practical advice and key takeaways, this book is a must read for B2B SaaS sales leaders. But what about Product Marketing? Well, there is plenty for Product Marketers to learn and help Sales and Marketing win the race together.

Tips for Salespeople from this book

Qualify your demo prospects the right way:

1. Qualifying accounts is important, but it is also important to qualify demo attendees. This will help map product’s benefits to prospect’s needs and evaluation criteria.
2. Research prospects before qualifying – Learn about clients, investments, partnerships, events attended, media news etc.

Structuring the Demo

1. Know the audience – Ask for an introduction before the demo, prepare list of questions and ask the right questions during the demo to hit the home run.  Questions could be – “Why is prospect interested”, “What are their objectives”, “How are they currently doing it”, “have they used a similar product in the past”, “Who are the stakeholders involved” and many other similar questions.
2. Agenda Driven – Identify the three most important things of your demo. It’s highly likely prospects will remember more than 3 things.
3. Go from Macro to micro – Don’t show them something which they can’t relate to. Sketch the big picture first and go into details later.
4. Reveal capabilities in layers in accord with customer’s level of interest. Show the route to end result with minimum mouse clicks. They should feel that the product is easy to use and not complicated.
5. Demonstrate value, not features or functionalities. Nobody cares about the features if it doesn’t add value. Begin with a big bang. Don’t keep the good stuff to the end. You may not get the time and attention it deserves.
6. Keep asking questions to engage them and get feedback. A demo with a string of features and no feedback is a lost deal.

Do’s and Don’ts of a good product demo

1.   Product Demos are not training tools; Demos are Sales tools. Don’t demo features, instead focus on value.
2.   Close every demo with the close. If there is a call to be scheduled, do it right away on the call. Have a clear CTA.
3.   Never interrupt a prospect when they are asking a question even if you know the answer already. Ask questions that contextualize the value you provide.
4.   Demos should ideally be 15-25 mins max and that includes time for questions.

Speak their language. Don’t use jargon.

1.   Re engage past demos and closed lost prospects
2.   Reach out if there are changes in product/value prop/ or you have added a new customer like prospect.
3.   Send them an email or call highlighting what has changed in these last 9 months and why they could give it another look.

Unleashing Sales Power with right Product Marketing Strategy

Product Marketing plays a crucial role at the intersection of Sales, Product and Growth Marketing. As the owners of a product’s value proposition and market messaging, they work closely with field sales, product owners, and growth marketing leaders to develop messaging that resonates with the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Therefore, it is essential that they remain as engaged as possible with the sales funnel. Here’s how their role aligns with the lead cycle:

• Top of the funnel – greater collaboration with Growth Marketing
• Middle of the funnel – increased collaboration with Sales and Solution Specialists
• Bottom of the funnel – more collaboration with Sales and Customer Success Managers (CSMs)

While product marketing performs a wide range of activities across the sales and customer cycle, this section will focus on how a Product Marketing specialist can help Sales deliver winning SaaS demos.

1. Define the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), identify decision maker Personas and their challenges, and gather relevant success stories.
2. Develop enablement collaterals, including qualifying questions, scripts, and discovery questions.
3. Provide product details, such as top-used features, key statistics about product usage, and user-based features.
4. Create product collaterals, such as a Product 1 Pager and Competitor Battle Cards, which are essential for demos. Also, feature and value proposition-based video testimonials and case studies. The sales team should know when and how to use these materials.
5. Implement a nurture sequence for emails.
6. Develop account-based messages and provide support for high-value key accounts, such as special invitations to webinars and field events or sending personalized gifts for potential high-value deals.

Measure and learn

When running a program, especially one driven by marketing, it’s crucial to measure its impact and learn from feedback. Don’t toss everything out the window and start from scratch if something isn’t working. Instead, zero in on areas that need improvement and give your sales squad the tools they need to convert more demos. If a prospect is a good match, has the budget and is within your target niche, your team should be able to convert them. If you lose winnable deals to a competitor, it’s time to re-evaluate what went wrong. This is where product marketers can step up by being proactive, improving communication, working closely with sales, and providing relevant, high-quality content.

Author : Aashish Gambhir (Product Marketing Manager at Provana)

(This is a guest blog sourced from a b2b marketing leader/expert with due permission.)