Data represents the success of any enterprise, especially for your presales operations. With customers ranking demos as their preferred sales interaction, if you’re not analyzing the metrics surrounding the impact your demo is having – especially interactive video demos – then you’re missing out on a huge strategy to improve your overall sales game plan.
Why? Because video demos work. They increase brand recognition, generate sales leads, and meet customized B2B needs. Plus, people love sharing good content with colleagues. Intelligent demo automation can also get your product in front of more stakeholders faster.
According to a 2022 video survey by Wyzowl, 82% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and 92% consider it critical to their overall marketing strategy. With such a strong presence at the marketing stage, it’s easy to see how using video demos can bolster all your presales and sales operations. Further Wyzowl research backs this up, finding that just over 90% of people surveyed feel that a good video demo builds confidence during the sales process and provides a proactive way to address customer objections.
So how do you translate the broad videos created by marketing into a personalized, detailed presentation to get the best return on investment (ROI) for your interactive video demos? By gathering targeted, actionable data. Presales automation tools, such as our Demolytics™, provide critical insights into who’s watching and sharing your videos and whether or not they are moving toward a purchase decision.
In order to maximize the effectiveness of your interactive video demos, we suggest you take a closer look at the following critical metrics:
Conversion Rate
At the end of the day, your most essential sales metric is your conversion rate. Is your video demo drawing the right people in, keeping them engaged, and helping you close the deal? If not, it’s nothing more than an expensive distraction in your buyer enablement process no matter how great your demo appears.
View Rate
Sometimes referred to as a ‘vanity metric,’ your overall view count tells you how many people expressed enough interest in your product to click on your demo. The popularity of your video demo, coupled with your audience’s demographics, can tell you a lot about whether your message is connecting with the right target groups and if you’re reaching the proper ideal customer profile (ICP).
Discover Rate
The discover rate is the percentage of Stakeholders Discovered divided by how many demo experiences, or ‘Demoboards’ were viewed. So a 10% discover rate would mean that for every 10 DemoBoards viewed, you discover 1 new stakeholder. This shows if the content you’re creating is resonating with new audiences.
Stakeholders Discovered (Shares)
When a recipient shares a demo or series of demos with others, they create new or update data around the stakeholder engagement at that buyer. This is key for understanding the shape of the buying group, and how each buyer interacts with your content over time.
Recipient View Rate
The percentage of total recipients that have viewed a demo. This starts to build the metrics usually presented to other departments, but which has infrequently been available to presales leaders. By understanding the number of people who have viewed, not just received a demo, the engagement of the buying group can be measured more accurately.
Average View Time
Creating engaging content is a normal requirement, but understanding how much of that content is actually watched only comes when you have accurate analytics supporting your content decisions. A high average view time is a good indicator of content that meets the needs of the buyer at the point they needed it. This is why we recommend tuning the content to meet those needs instead of just using the same videos you’d put on YouTube.
View-Through Rate (VTR)
While tracking your overall views is essential, your view-through rate gives you a deeper perspective into how long your audience remains engaged with your demo. This data will tell you which members of your audience are watching the interactive demo in its entirety and when and how they engage with the presentation.
For example, if your VTR tells you a high percentage of your viewers drop off after five seconds, you may need to address some critical flaws with your opening page. Or, if only a few are clicking on the call-to-action tab, perhaps you must adjust your content to be more specific to stakeholder pain points and solutions.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Your click-through rate tracks how many people click on the call-to-action tab embedded in your interactive video demo. Tabs like “Request a Demo” or “Get a Quote” tell your audience what they need to do in order to take the next step in the sales process.
The CTR metric tells you how well the call-to-action in your video demo is working to attract potential customers, specifically those who want to know more about your product and how it can help them. As such, CTRs serve as powerful lead generators.
Link CTR
If you embed your demo with links to other resources – such as an associated e-book or product use case study – the Link CTR metric shows you how many people watching your video are also interested in gathering additional information about your product or service. Conversely, if they’re ignoring the links, maybe it’s time to create some more enticing content.
Share Statistics
Typically, your customer will need to receive buy-in from several different stakeholders, people you and your team might never meet but still need to help influence. Share data shows you how often and on what platforms your buyer and other company stakeholders are viewing your product video, for how long, and whether or not they are passing it along to others within the organization.
Keeping a close eye on your Share statistics and adjusting your video demo accordingly will get your message in front of more stakeholders faster and more organically. It also presents the opportunity to discover new stakeholders you weren’t aware of, but need to win over.
Device Location
Knowing the location of your viewers can make a big difference in how you structure your interactive demos and what content you include. For instance, if your software has global applications and many of your interested customer views are coming from Eastern Europe, you’ll want to use culturally-appropriate content that’s relevant to those potential clients.
Because this relevant, attributable data helps support the growth of presales, the effect the function has across all areas of the buyer’s journey and ultimately how much impact presales has to the revenue number. The more we understand the effect we have – and where, and how, and why – the more we’re able to strengthen the relevance to modern selling, and increase closed deals with happy customers.
