Demo Videos:
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Some of these went on the resume, 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 in B2B.
“Have you considered how many hours, how much money, that daily time
suck is costing you?”
Clear solution statement, focused on user benefits. Notice “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. Spokesperson Challenges
When a face appears on screen, the viewer’s brain instantly switches from “Do I believe this message?” to “Do I trust this person?” Therefore a spokesperson must gain trust as quickly as possible.
Watch this video carefully. At the start, notice that Bree looks up and speaks slowly as she thinks about past events. These actions do not inspire trust.
However, at 32 seconds, Bree gets energized and becomes the perfect spokesperson: confident, informed and credible. Given a few more takes, she could have started the video this way.
9. When It’s All About Us
Taylor comes across as confident, but his energy and script combine to make the video about him and Jira. He never shows empathy for the customer. At 33 seconds he describes the work that made him proud, which aligns only loosely with customer issues.
Taylor never achieves the level of empathy and credibility that Bree does in the previous video. The problem started with the script, which does not answer a customer question.
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. 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.
13. …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."
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, mention something they care about during the first 60 seconds. 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. Not Good Enough
Some viewers love the faces-smiles-features style of this video. Others ask, where’s the beef? With thousands of collaboration and workflow solutions out there, this one doesn’t stand out very well.
21. Um, What?
Yes, it does go on like this for 5 minutes. No, we don’t get it either. Another committee? No product?
22. Joke
Yes, you did see something like this on the Super Bowl.
23. Not a Joke
At least the joke had Deep Voice Dude!
24. 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!
25. The Worst Corporate Video Ever
Why is it the worst ever?
Lots of custom 3D animation = expensive.
Best voiceover: “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.