SaaS Walkthrough: Create Yours With 3 Examples

The average time spent per page in the SaaS industry is 105 seconds. How can you explain your software in one minute and 45 seconds? Will screenshots and text suffice or is it more effective to provide a self-serve SaaS walkthrough that lets prospects click through a guided tour of your app?

Interactive walkthroughs are a relatively new tool in the marketer’s toolkit, and they’re an incredibly powerful way to guide prospects to your product’s Aha! Moment through a step-by-step tour of your product.

By analyzing interactive demo examples built by our customers, we found that 55% of users engaged with demos featured on an existing page, and a whopping 60% of viewers engaged with them all the way through to the end.

In this article we will go over the benefits of SaaS walkthroughs as well as best practices and some examples of successful interactive demos that increased signups by 1.7x.

The benefits of SaaS walkthroughs

Demo recording software enables you to create interactive walkthroughs that highlight key features and showcase the value of your product through an engaging, self-serve medium. With the help of these tools, your sales team doesn’t need to demonstrate your product’s value on a call just to see if a prospect is a fit – your homepage does everything for you.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg – interactive product walkthroughs have many benefits. Let’s go over them:

1. Simplifying new feature promotion

Imagine using an SEO tool packed with features from website audits to keyword research, but you're only interested in checking your backlinks profile. 

You sit through an hour-long demo and a sales pitch to hear more about this feature or you examine product screenshots that don’t tell the full story. Prospects no longer need to experience this thanks to interactive product demos.

Each SaaS walkthrough can be tailored to a specific feature. For instance, you click on the backlinks feature demo and after a few minutes, you know the gist of the feature and whether it is worth your time and money. There's no confusion—just a seamless demo showing how the feature works one step at a time. It's like having a personalized guide just for you.

In the past, SaaS companies relied on blog posts, sales calls or webinars to explain new features in detail. However, they can now demonstrate these updates in a more engaging format with interactive walkthrough software.

It's difficult to explain core features in a single demo. With a demo library, you create a list of walkthroughs and let prospects self-select the features they want to explore. It’s as simple as that!

2. Reducing pressure on customers support teams

Picture this: a SaaS company that creates a demo center to store all of its product walkthroughs. This section of their website acts as a virtual guide, leading prospects through the software and explaining its features –  a self-service library that they can access anytime and from any device.

According to Zendesk, 91% of customers would go through a company’s knowledge base if it meets their needs. It gives them the power to find all the answers themselves while easing the pressure for your customer support team.

The self-service functionality has benefits such as:

• The team has time to focus on leads who are more likely to convert after watching a demo than those who are just browsing the website.
• Prospects understand what your product does before they interact with your team, thus shortening the sales cycle.

Product walkthrough software can reduce the burden on your support team. It empowers prospects to explore the product independently without the team needing to schedule calls and spend hours explaining features to people.

3. Boosting engagement

According to data from our customer base, 89% of users engage with interactive demos on landing pages. Higher user engagement demonstrates that product tours effectively capture prospects’ attention and motivate them to explore the software further.

For SaaS walkthroughs to be engaging, they need to flow well, highlight the most important features, have concise explanations and speed up/slow down in the right places. 

4. Increasing conversion rates

What can prompt prospects to become customers? A walkthrough that helps them experience the product firsthand and understand how it solves their issues.

Interactive product tours can significantly increase conversion rates and improve other metrics. For instance, we saw how they brought 1.5x more activations for Flagsmith.  Therefore, prospects who understand all aspects of a product are more likely to become paying customers.

Interactive walkthroughs offer numerous benefits, from simplifying new feature promotions to boosting engagement. They have become the go-to tool for SaaS businesses looking to help users with the digital adoption of their products.

If you want to create product tours, HowdyGo, an interactive walkthrough software tool, can help you. Let’s explore its features below.

How to create a SaaS product walkthrough

HowdyGo is a demo recording software for sales and marketing teams. It lets you record, edit and embed an interactive guide on your website or landing pages in just a few clicks.

Interactive walkthrough software like HowdyGo helps you create walkthroughs without any coding knowledge. By clicking through your product, you get an HTML demo that showcases premium features and explains their value to prospects.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Install the HowdyGo Chrome Extension – we offer a 2-week trial so you have time to explore it. With this browser extension, you can capture snapshots of the page just by pressing “Start Recording.” Whenever you click on that page, HowdyGo captures a step.

2. Navigate through your app to create product walkthroughs featuring specific functionalities. From typing to dragging and dropping, HowdyGo records everything so you can replay the interaction to users.

3. In the end, just click “Stop Recording” to save your interactive walkthrough.

HowdyGo then takes you to the Editor where you can:

• Edit an annotation: If you’re wondering how to create a great interactive product demo, HowdyGo has you covered. Our tool lets you add annotations, i.e., notes that explain specific elements of your product. Use the annotations to make your walkthrough stand out and drive user adoption by guiding prospects through a logical sequence. Add and remove text to explain a feature or draw attention to specific parts of the interface.

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• Insert chapters: Break interactive walkthroughs into chapters for a better user experience. This allows customers to jump between different sections and find the most relevant parts of the demo easily.

• Delete steps: While creating interactive walkthroughs, you might capture a step not relevant to your users. You don’t need to start recording from scratch – simply delete the step in the Editor by clicking on the trash icon.

• Reorder steps: The drag-and-drop functionality allows you to reorder a step by dragging and dropping its thumbnail.

• Insert new steps: This interactive walkthrough software allows you to insert new steps into the existing product tour. Click on “Insert Step” to choose if you want to add a step from the current demo or record a new one.

Key HowdyGo features

With a 2-week free trial, you get to experience all the HowdyGo features that let you create your first demo in just a few clicks. Here’s an overview of those features.

• Unlimited HTML interactive demos: HowdyGo records interactive HTML demos as you click through your app. This interactive walkthrough software caches HTML, CSS, media and fonts to create a pixel-perfect copy of your product.
• Editing: The Editor has many functionalities. You can insert, delete or reorder steps with a few clicks. You can even edit the captured UI of your app!
• Demo checklist: During product demo video production, you can add demo checklists. This allows users to navigate a longer demo or find the most interesting parts easily.
• Integrations: This interactive walkthrough software integrates with apps like HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Segment and Marketo.
• Website embed: Embed an interactive walkthrough on your website or landing pages to capture prospects’ attention.
• Demo analytics: Gain valuable insights on the interactive walkthroughs’ performance and user behavior. Understand how you can improve demo engagement with data and help your sales team increase pipeline.

HowdyGo helps SaaS companies capture interactive walkthroughs, showing users what a specific product can do. You can do so in just a few clicks – you don’t need to know how to code or edit a video.

Get started for free!

Top 3 SaaS walkthrough examples to inspire you

After choosing the interactive walkthrough software, it’s time to start recording. Don’t know where to start? We’ve got some great SaaS walkthrough examples to get you going. You can also check out our tips for better interactive product demos.

Let’s go over the examples!

Flagsmith

Flagsmith is an all-in-one feature flag tool for developers. As such, it requires advanced technical knowledge. To ensure its customers understand how to leverage it, Flagsmith relies on interactive walkthroughs that showcase the product and UX in action.

The demo is conveniently located on the Flagsmith website so all visitors can see the product in action. As the team explained, they wanted to show prospects how the platform worked without making them configure everything.

The demo focuses on three main features:

• Feature flags
• Schedule deployments
• Audit logs

Why is it a great example? We put it on our list because:

• It’s short and to the point – it explains the product in just five clicks.
• It uses annotations to guide prospects and call out important aspects.
• It includes the HowdyGo demo checklists, breaking the demo into sections. When prospects or users complete a section, they can move to the next one.

Flagsmith’s use of interactive product demos resulted in:

• Organic reviews of the product.

• Contact us form submissions that mention the demo.

• Internal support from executive team members.

On top of that, Flagsmith generated great campaign results. For instance, thanks to HowdyGo, Flagsmith increased sign-ups by 1.7x.

Ansarada

Ansarada offers an information governance platform for enterprises. With HowdyGo, it created interactive walkthroughs that make this complex enterprise software easy to understand for prospects and customers. Website visitors can access them on the corresponding product pages, highlighting how important placement strategy is.

Its resource center features a demo that highlights collaborative working in Office 365. It explains to prospects how they can open, edit and save Microsoft Office files within their virtual data rooms. From editing to collaborating together, prospects get a full picture of everything they can do with Ansarada.

The key highlights of the demo are:

• Ansarada proves that you can explain complex solutions to prospects by guiding them through the platform step by step.
• It is a multi-step SaaS walkthrough featuring chapters to create structure and a seamless experience.
• The demo is story-driven, showing in action how prospects can collaborate on documents with their team members.

ADInstruments

AdInstruments offers an online learning platform for science, chemistry, medicine and nursing. It’s a great solution for both schools and students. Schools can now engage pupils outside of the classroom, while students can continue learning on their own.

As ADInstruments has several solutions, it placed the demo on the product page of Lt, an online learning platform. The page gives a breakdown of the available lessons, with the demo shown after that.

This interactive product demo focuses on the app, showing users what they can find on the homepage. It also explains the content library and how users can access content. You can master the platform in just a few easy steps.

Here’s why you should check it out:

• AdInstruments organized the demo by including chapters. Prospects can easily jump between the content library and editing options. The first section has nine steps, while the second has four.
• It includes annotations that bring prospects’ attention to a specific feature and provide more context.
• There’s a CTA in the end to encourage prospects to take action, i.e., sign up for the free trial or check out the next demo.

With the help of our interactive walkthrough software, AdInstruments added chapters, annotations and interactive elements to make the demo more engaging.

Conclusion

SaaS companies that want to increase conversion, improve their prospects’ buying experience and reduce workload on sales and support teams need interactive walkthroughs.

With HowdyGo, you can create interactive walkthroughs that capture every aspect of your app. You can make any changes to the demo using the built-in Editor, from adding steps, to editing the captured UI, to even adding demo checklists.

Unlike other interactive walkthrough software, HowdyGo has unlimited demos and user seats on startup friendly plans. This helps you engage your entire company in the demo recording process and share walkthroughs that catch prospects’ attention.

Our blog has many resources that can help you create eye-catching demos. Explore examples to increase SaaS landing page conversion rates and discover demo automation software.

In the meantime, it’s time to start recording with HowdyGo.

Get started for free!

FAQs

What is the difference between a product tour and a walkthrough?

A product tour provides an overview of a product and its main features. It usually showcases the key aspects of that product without providing too many details. A walkthrough tends to go more into depth, serving as an interactive step by step guide for users. You can use either of them to target prospects or streamline your onboarding process for different users.

Which is the best product walkthrough software?

The best product walkthrough software fits your business needs. Many tools are available on the market, catering to different use cases and requirements. Some are targeted at user onboarding, while others are built for educating prospects. If you’re looking to create pixel-perfect interactive demos to embed in your marketing materials, choose HowdyGo.

How to give a SaaS walkthrough?

You can give a SaaS walkthrough using a digital adoption platform or demo recording software like HowdyGo. It offers a browser extension that captures every step you make within your product. After that, you can edit the interactive walkthrough to add annotations, delete steps or include chapters for easier navigation.