How to Create a Product Demo Video in 9 Steps

Demo videos are one of the most important assets product marketers have in their arsenal today. 

A quality demo video can help potential customers quickly understand whether or not your product is a fit for them – and how it can help them solve a daily challenge – without having to book a call with a sales rep. It can also be a fantastic opportunity to showcase how your product differs from your competitors’ products.

But great demo videos aren’t born of themselves. They require careful planning, a strong understanding of customer desires, and, of course, a decent video software tech stack.

In this article, we’ll explain the importance of demo videos in product marketing in 2024 and beyond. We’ll also dive into how modern AI tools can help you streamline video content creation.

What is a product demo video? 

A product demo video is a video recording that shows off the features and benefits of a product that your company sells.

For a physical product, a human usually demonstrates the product, though 3D video product demos are becoming more popular as new technology arises.

For software products, companies usually capture demo videos using a screen recording tool. These videos often have audio voice-overs that explain what’s on screen, though a live actor or an AI avatar can also fill this role.

Does your company need (better) product demo videos? 

Among those who watch product demo videos, 73% go on to make a purchase. Pretty impressive, right?

Unfortunately, many organizations still stick to the traditional in-person (or video call) demo. Sure, these have benefits, mainly the ability to customize the pitch to the customer and start building a relationship. 

But a good product demo video doesn’t have to replace the sales demo. Instead, it can supplement sales demos as a sales enablement tool or lead generation device.

If you’re still weighing whether you need a product demo video or not, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Are our sales cycles fast enough?
• Are we converting in-person demos at a sufficient rate?
• Do our customers come to sales conversations with an understanding of how our product works?
• Do our customers get the hang of our product quickly once they sign up?
• Are any of our prospects signing up without talking to a sales rep?

If you answered no to one or more of these questions, then a product demo video might be a good opportunity for you to support and enable your sales team.

The benefits of product demo videos 

Let’s explore a few reasons why standard product demonstrations are better in video format:

Show, don’t tell 

Video marketing comes with a unique benefit: it allows you to show customers what you want to communicate rather than simply tell them.

You can demonstrate key product features and functions with a high level of detail in a short period of time – much faster and more effectively than you would be able to with a written landing page, for example.

And even during live demo video calls, it’s easy to get sidetracked and forget to showcase important parts of your product. Creating a product demo video allows you to retain more control over exactly what you show the audience and ensure you won’t forget anything. 

Create faster sales cycles 

The best videos compel prospects to buy, meaning they’re poised to hand over their credit card details before they enter your customer relationship management platform.

As a result, you can shorten sales cycles and make it easier for sales reps to achieve success.

‍Pro tip: Video can also be a fantastic medium for delivering sales training to efficiently boost your team’s skills. 

Give more power to customers 

A demo video allows customers to make purchasing decisions at their own pace. For those early in the product evaluation process, booking a live demo with a sales rep can be intimidating, and having to commit this step may prevent them from moving forward. 

Instead, a demo video allows customers to watch your video whenever they have five minutes to spare and allows them to replay certain sections for clarity. 

This gives more power to the customer in the sales process, providing them more autonomy in deciding whether a product is worth their while without feeling forced to move forward. Remember, everyone loves to buy, but not everybody likes to be sold to.

Showcase complex features 

A product demo video is a great opportunity to showcase more complex features you offer that competitors’ products don’t.

The tricky thing about new, more complex features is that they can be difficult to explain to prospects in writing or even during a live demo. But, because demo videos can be scripted, it’s much easier to ensure you’re explaining each feature in the simplest way possible. 

And if you don’t get that simplicity across in the first take, you can always update your script and re-record a second time. 

Drive traffic through search 

Finally, video can be another way to drive organic traffic to your website via search.

Video SEO is a largely untapped opportunity, especially compared to standard SEO tactics like blog content creation. By creating a series of SEO-focused demo videos, you can capitalize on unique video search opportunities that your competitors are likely neglecting.

How AI can improve product demo videos 

Product demos are an important marketing asset, but they come with one major drawback: they’re time-consuming and costly to produce.

It can take weeks to produce a single video between storyboarding, recording, editing, and approval. And if what you produce doesn’t get sign-off from above, it's back to the recording phase for even more takes.

But when you use AI to produce a demo video, you can wrap up the whole process much faster.

AI doesn’t need multiple takes to get a specific phrase right. And if your boss sends the demo back for revisions, you don’t have to record again from scratch. With the help of an AI video generator like Colossyan, you can simply provide a few additional prompts to the conversational AI engine and render a new video.

What makes this speed and scalability even more valuable is that products commonly evolve and change over time. New features emerge, teams remodel layouts, and some functions may even become obsolete.

With a traditional demo video, each time your product changes, you’ll likely have to film a new video from scratch. When using AI, you can make a few edits to your script – or your prompts, if you’re using an AI script generator – and publish the updated video in minutes.

How to create an AI product demo video in 9 steps 

Never created an AI product demo video before? Here’s a quick nine-step guide on how to get it right the first time around:

1. Understand your audience 

Before you begin making product demo videos, you have to know who your target customers are. You should understand what challenges they face, the impact of those issues, and what solutions they may have already tried. 

Just like a live demo, a video demo should speak to your audience’s pain points and needs. If you’re selling in a competitive industry, showing your audience how you stand out from competitors is extremely important. But in order to understand your differentiation, you have to know your audience. 

2. Define your objectives 

You should decide what you want the demo video to do before you start. Is it a replacement for an in-person video call? Or is it just a lead-generating device? Should it cover main features that are applicable to all users or dive deep into a specific use case?

Remember, a video demo does not need to fully replace a live demo. You might decide to start with a video providing a high-level overview of your product and meet with the prospect for a deeper dive into the platform during the next step of the process. 

3. Pick a template 

Although using an AI video generation tool certainly allows you to fast-track your video by skipping the traditional production process, starting from scratch can still be time consuming. 

Fortunately, many AI video tools offer templates that give your video a strong foundation, and from there you can edit and customize it to perfection. 

4. Write your script

Now that you have the foundation of your video, you’ll need to come up with a script so that your AI avatar has something to say.

You can either write this yourself, or upload a document with the necessary information to Colossyan’s document-to-video feature, which will then transform your document into a video draft in under 60 seconds. 

But regardless of your script writing method, you’ll want to make sure it covers the points you identified when researching your target audience and addresses how your product's features solve those challenges. 

5. Choose your avatar(s)

Next, you’ll want to consider which AI avatar best suits your target audience. Most AI video software tools offer dozens of different avatars to choose from – including a range of different ages, ethnicities, and professions – that you can use to your liking. 

6. Gather and design your assets

Now that you’ve selected a template, written a script, and chosen an avatar, it’s time to put everything together and compile any additional visuals. 

For a video demo, these additional assets might include a screen recording of your product, branded marketing assets, or customer testimonials. After all, you want your video demos to look and feel authentic to your own brand. 

7. Address any accent or language changes 

Selling to prospects in different markets can be difficult, especially when it comes to language barriers. Fortunately, software tools like Colossyan allow you to automatically translate your video content into over 70 languages, dialects, and accents. 

Just imagine how many more markets you could sell into with content in different languages. 

8. Add a clear call to action (CTA)

At the end of the day, the goal of all demos – live or video – is to inspire the prospect to action. This is why it’s so important to ensure that your demo video provides a compelling CTA for viewers, whether that’s signing up for a free trial or registering for a full-length custom demo with a sales representative.

9. Go live

Lastly, it’s time to finalize your demo video and generate it. From there, you’ll want to publish it on your website or video hosting service and potentially distribute it to customers via social media, email, and other communication channels.

Here’s a bonus tip: a good product video is never finished.

Creating demo videos that are actually effective requires you to regularly ask for customer feedback and monitor your performance metrics to ensure your audience is engaging with the material in the right way. 

Failure to constantly revise and update your product demo videos will leave you with content featuring outdated messaging and features. And old content isn’t going to help you win new customers. 

Effective product demo video examples 

Now that we’ve walked you through the process of creating a demo video, let’s check out some examples for a bit of inspiration. 

GoPro 

GoPro offers the perfect example of a product demo video.

It's a classy blend of product imagery and compelling marketing messaging that gives potential customers a 360-degree demo of the product in just over a minute.

What really makes video a great format here is that GoPro can record its product offering using its own product to demonstrate just how great its output looks.

Slack 

Slack has a 45-second quick-start guide that serves as a simple product demo video.

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This video shows potential customers exactly what Slack looks like and guides them through a step-by-step process to get started.

What’s compelling about this example is that Slack gives buyers an overview of how easy it is to set up in less than a minute.

Square 

Here’s another example of a physical product demo, this time from Square.

Here, Square introduces its new point of sale system – Square Register – in an effective one-minute video.

This demo video doesn’t show the product in an isolated environment. Instead, it demonstrates exactly how customers would use Square Register in a real-life scenario, which helps to promote psychological ownership. 

Asana 

Our final demo video example comes from Asana, a project management app.

This short clip introduces customers to Asana. It replaces the traditional static landing page by condensing all the written information that would otherwise be scattered across multiple sections into a short video demo.

What’s great about this demo is that it's not just a series of static slides with a voice-over. The narrator is present, but the product demonstration happens in real time as a team moves tasks from one stage to another and assigns them to users. This video helps viewers get a feel for how Asana works, not just what it looks like.

Colossyan: Your AI demo video generator 

Product demo videos are a powerful marketing asset. Many companies use them to supplement live sales demos, conduct sales training, or support their employee onboarding process.

We’ve already explored some of Colossyan’s features throughout this blog, but here’s an example of our very own high-level product demo: 

The traditional demo video can be costly and time-consuming to produce. But with an AI video generator like Colossyan, you can cut down video production timelines from weeks to hours. 

Interested in learning more? Book a time with our sales team to learn how you can create your own product demo video today.