Has your company prepared for the explosion in demand for product demos?
Slack offers one. Twilio and Atlassian are also. Alsoforce had one (hello, Q Branch). We are witnessing the emergence of the demo engineer, a truly intriguing category.
What is a demo engineer?
A demo engineer is a crucial component of your pre-sales team. They collaborate with every member of your revenue team (sales, marketing, and customer success) to produce customized, compelling demos that can be used at every stage of the sales process and customer relationship.
Demo engineers normally don’t interact directly with customers or prospects, but they make it possible for everyone who does so to deliver the demo materials quickly and effectively.
Product demos demands have exploded. This is why the need for demo engineering has become even more crucial than before.
These are 3 main reasons you should give starting a demo engineering team or growing your current one great consideration in 2023 and beyond.
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Buyers seek product-led growth
Let’s face it, B2B buyers will always want to see and use your goods before they decide to purchase it. Many people even want to use it before starting a free trial or enrolling in your freemium plan to determine whether the installation and integrations are worthwhile.
Because of this, product-led growth is still booming. These days, buyers frequently want a product experience before speaking with a sales representative, so they’re not going to have to do something other than a traditional discovery call to obtain one. They’ll just pick another service that doesn’t require such hurdles as the SaaS market is more competitive than ever.
PLG and the rising need for demos are both continuing trends. Demos still need to be made for all of your customer personas and use cases, despite the rise of demo software that makes the process faster and more scalable.
What happens to enablement when new product features are released? How can you guarantee that everyone’s demos tell the same story? This is where a demo engineer comes in, as per Haley Cen who happens to be a Demo Engineering Lead at Amplitude.
That person might be a SE, but they can be difficult to locate and even more challenging to keep. Alternatively, think about employing a demo engineer to create the demos for your SEs.
Allow your SEs to concentrate on their area of strength—converting those technical specifications for prospects into practical business solutions—while your demo engineers create fantastic demos for:
- Marketing: Marketers should encourage consumers to educate themselves before making a purchase.
- Sales: Close more transactions more quickly with highly customized demos that perfectly communicate a narrative
- Customer Success: Promote usage by giving customers tutorials on how to make the most of your product.
- Learning and development: Getting new personnel up to speed and prepared to enter the pitch of battle faster through learning and development
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Product demos are more than just sales meeting tools
No longer are just your sales representatives in need of demos. Customers are impatient; when they visit your website for preliminary research, they want to take at least a brief tour of your product. To satisfy those hurried buyers, your product marketers and marketing staff also require access to materials.
Demo engineers are there to make sure that all the employees at an organization can access the excellent demos they require at the appropriate time. SEs are concentrated on those crucial sales meetings, but demo engineers can assist throughout the firm, so your website also effectively offers your product.
Your demos will be more effective if your demo engineering team is in charge of demos across all functions. They can guarantee consistency and turn each demo into a cohesive unit. This is true if you build an in-house demo environment or use a demo creation platform.
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Your pool of prospective SEs won’t expand on its own
You already know how difficult it is to find SEs these days—they are essentially purple squirrels, so it makes sense. Seeking a team of individuals with a strong sales background and in-depth technical knowledge? Whew. Recruiters, good luck with your work.
You can, however, resolve this issue by assembling a demo engineering team. Demo engineers are highly skilled technical professionals who will get even more knowledgeable about your tech stack as they produce more demos, making them an excellent stepping stone to a SE post. They can help you today with sales enablement while building a solid pool of SEs for the future.
