Demo Videos:
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Some of these went on a résumé, others not so much.
1. Doing It Right
This video does nearly everything right: Describes the problem, then shows the PandaDocs solution with clear benefits for every feature.
Plus a bonus benefit at the end! The animation focuses on the product and process, without wasting time on cartoon characters.
What PandaDoc is Saying
Voiceover Script
A clear problem statement with Hot Buttons aimed at a specific audience, in one (long) sentence.
“For decades, sales reps like you have spent hours creating sales quotes, proposals and contracts the hard way, using clunky word processors, spreadsheets applications and needless email threads.”
Straight to the cost of the problem, the #1 issue for B2B SaaS.
“Have you considered how many hours, how much money, that daily time
suck is costing you?”
Clear solution statement, focused on user benefits. Notice they highlighted “manager approved,” a big issue among the secondary audience: IT departments and staff managers.
“Welcome to PandaDoc, your all-in-one solution for smarter sales documents. With access to templates and a library of manager-approved content, your reps can build spot-on documents in minutes.”
More benefits. Too bad they don't show the actual product!
(Cute animated videos were all the rage once, like mullets.)
“Merge templates with CRM data, and your team will never retype tedious details again. A centralized product catalog, together with automatic tax, discount and margin calculations, means less number crunching and more selling.”
Bonus benefits that customers may not have thought of yet. This implies that the product will grow with the customer.
“Built-in workflow management helps you automate your approval process. Once a document has been sent, your reps can see how much time your client has spent on each section, intelligently address objections, and close deals faster with built-in electronic signatures.”
Summary and call to action. Not timely or specific, because this appeared on their home page for an extended period and was not part of a campaign.
“PandaDoc makes it easy to create and deliver flawless sales documents that help you win big. Sign up for an account and learn more about PandaDoc today.”
2. Keeping Hardware Simple
“If you have EMI issues with your isolated power supply, then ADI’s next-generation isoPower with Isolated Data may be for you. The ADuM6241A offers a drop-in DC-DC power converter with data isolation in a chip-scale package.”
That’s a Problem Statement followed by a Solution Statement, data measurements, benefits and a call to action. Another concise Problem-Solution style message in under 90 seconds.
3. Keeping Software Simple
This 2012 Jira demo told a simple story. The features were so advanced for the time that viewers got excited, but a few more benefits would have helped.
4. Tutorial Demo
If a customer requests lots of detail, give it to them. This longer form tutorial demo works because it sticks to the differentiated features and explains the benefit of each one. The rapid pace works perfectly for today’s impatient viewers who know how to use the rewind button if necessary.
This style is probably a bit too long for your home page, where surfers want fast answers. It might work perfectly on your product page, where they are looking for details.
5. Messaging for One Target Audience
Here’s the context for this one:
Target audience: Shopify store owners
#1 Shopify store owner request: mobile management app
The video was released to a standing ovation at the annual gathering of Shopify store owners. Know your audience.
6. Animation Slows This Down
The first 15 seconds of this video say nothing, which is disastrous in this era when you need to gain attention within seconds. After 0:15 it starts to move very rapidly, packing a lot of story into the last 65 seconds.
Is your animation telling your story, or slowing your story down?
7. A Bit of Hyperbole Won’t Hurt Agilent
Agilent/HP has an 80-year track record in the instrument business. Customers will forgive them a little hyperbole like “unbelievably robust” and “remarkably versatile.” This video is equipment porn for the lab coat crowd, because it shows so many advanced features and benefits unavailable from competitors.
Startups should stick to the facts for the first 5 decades or so.
8. Salesforce Got It Right…
If you are the target market for this product (Senior Manager at a large SalesForce customer or targeted prospect), this video will make you drool. Although it skips past the problem (common when market leaders sell into mature markets, because the problems are widely understood) it clearly demonstrates the solution with a nice balance of features and benefits.
9. …Then the Committee Got Involved
This time the committee wrote the script. You’ll hear run-on technobabble while watching undifferentiated scrolling data. At 0:11 listen for 56 nonsense words:
"Account-based forecasting provides a central platform for sales, operations and product teams to virtually collaborate and navigate uncertainty by easily viewing forecasts at account and product levels with context into quantity and revenue to improve S&OP collaboration, and can better understand customer purchasing behavior with easy-to-modify levers for account growth and seasonal changes."
10. Sometimes Features are Enough…
Usually you want to drive the benefits home with voiceover, but in this case the feature demo is so cool the benefits are obvious.
Well done Ikea!
11. …Sometimes They Aren’t
Like Ikea, Airtable probably felt the screenshots would illustrate their own benefits. Unlike Ikea, their benefits more cerebral and less “gee whiz!” This video would have been much more powerful if the narrator had just said why each feature was important (the benefits). As it stands, it’s an upbeat feature dump.
12. Not Good Enough
Some viewers love the faces-smiles-features style of this video. Others ask, where’s the beef? With dozens of collaboration and workflow solutions out there, this video fails to show how the product is different.
13. Um, What?
“We will work. We will fight. We will innovate. We will create. And we will serve.” Yes, it does go on like this for 5 minutes. Another committee script? No product this year? No, we don’t get it either.
14. Wordless Demo 1
The target audience is surgeons. Watch to the end. Words aren’t necessary.
15. Wordless Demo 2
Which is better, the jackhammer drop or the magic with the mouse? Again, words aren’t necessary.
16. Uh-oh: “Today’s Enterprises…”
If you want people to stick around, get to the point fast. This video fails that test.
17. Undifferentiated Differentiation
Flock attempted to demonstrate differentiation from Slack with this video. Although Flock does load faster, and might have an incrementally better UI, those are slim differences that Slack could fix in a minor update. Nobody is going to move their team from Slack to Flock for this, especially given how many Slack channels most users are connected to!
18. Animated Technical Message
This software company animated their problem and solution story using code and project timelines. No cartoon characters or clip art. According to the stats, 72% of viewers watched to the end, which is high given today’s short attention spans.
19. Animated Cartoon Characters
Enterprise buyers don’t get excited by generic cartoon characters and clip art. Has a customer ever said, “That cartoon is so clever, we want that thing?”
20. Explainer for Market Validation
This video was created specifically to test customer reactions and get feedback. It follows a classic outline: Problem Statement, Solution Overview, Benefits. By pausing after each one, you can ask for feedback on each of the assumed problem and benefit statements.
21. Trade Show Demo Video
Lots of colorful visuals to attract the right audience. All you need is a big screen TV at the front of the booth.
22. Explainer for a Marketplace
eFabless built a crowdsourced chip design platform that brought together many different audiences: designers, OEMs, foundries and software providers. This video explained how their marketplace worked, and how it solved difficult design control problems.
23. Technical Demo Video
Problem, Solution, Customer Examples. Simple.
24. Joke
Yes, you did see something like this on the Super Bowl.
25. Not a Joke
At least the joke had Deep Voice Dude!
26. The Worst Demo Video Ever
Not since the Reagan era has a customer asked how the trash can works. Yet this demo giver loves the trash can so much that he explores it for a full minute at 20:20.
You are forced to watch this feature dump until 9:52 before seeing the first differentiated feature. It’s a pity, because Scrivener is a useful workflow product for writers. SpaceX can launch Falcon Heavy and land the boosters within 8 minutes. A demo needs to land more quickly than that!
27. The Worst Corporate Video Ever
Why is it the worst ever?
Lots of custom 3D animation = expensive.
Clever script: “I want to be a frog, or a unicorn!”
Can you identify the problem, solution, target audience, product…or even the company?
Committee compromised coprolite.
28. You Could Just Stream Live Video Forever
This video stream ran live for several years. No voiceover, no text. Just a live stream with 4 million cycles on a sump pump level switch.