Your landing page has to show your product

We ran a short poll on LinkedIn with a simple question:

"If you couldn't see a screenshot or video of a product in action, would you book a demo with a sales rep?"

88% - Would not book a demo if they couldn't see your product

This might seem obvious to people looking to buy SaaS products, but we wanted to understand the true statistics on how many B2B SaaS companies actually showed their product on their landing page.

29.8% - B2B SaaS companies don't show their product at all

Almost 30% of companies don't show their product at all, and while the other 70% are showing off their product - 94% of them only use screenshots to demonstrate what they are capable of.

We've written about the perils of Book a Demo buttons before, and we wanted to follow it up with some well researched statistics on how many B2B SaaS companies are getting this stage right and wrong.

We assessed over 200 B2B SaaS company websites and pulled together some facts about how difficult companies are making it for prospects to progress themselves through the early stages of the funnel, and surprisingly, how difficult they are making it to even see the product the prospect wants to buy. (I know right?)

Read on the find out more about what we discovered, and how you can avoid the mistakes.

The Research Setup

We wanted to look at a nice cross section of SaaS companies, with a variety of demographics:

• ICP are enterprises or SMBs
• Funding
• Industry
• Country of origin

Our goal was to look at their landing pages and understand how marketers within these companies approached their early-stage prospects. Importantly, we wanted to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who really wanted to buy from these companies.

What we assessed

We searched for specific elements on their landing page:

1. Can I see the product without signing up, and if so, how?
2. Interactive Demo
3. Screenshot
4. GIF
5. Video
6. An abstract video that doesn't actually show the product
7. Is "Book a Demo" (or similar) a prominent CTA?
8. Do I have to submit my details and be contacted, or
9. Can I instantly select a time that works for me?
10. Is there a self-signup free trial that I can use?

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Can you see the product without signing up

If you're an empathetic marketer, you might be thinking that a prospect will probably want to actually see your product before committing to:

1. Buying it
2. Providing contact details to be marketed at.

And this brings us to the first 💣 bombshell.

29.8% - B2B SaaS companies don't show their product at all

We aren't talking about giving them an interactive demo, or a walkthrough of the product. 29.8% of companies literally, do not show their product in a screenshot or gif on their landing page.

Those that did show their product used different fidelity options

Of those that did show their product we can further break that down by how they did it.

When we assessed this, we wanted to know what level of fidelity the prospect was able to experience. A screenshot is quick and easy to do, but they are not likely to instill much confidence in the prospect that the product actually does what it says, or is easy to use. It's simply too easy to create a nice looking mock-up using Figma or similar.

Starting with the lowest fidelity (screenshot) and going to the highest fidelity (an interactive demo environment).

Lowest Fidelity

94% - Used a simple screenshot of their product

24.5% -Used an animated GIF

23% - Used an abstract video

27.3% - Used a video that shows the product

4.3% - Used an interactive demo

Highest Fidelity

As we can see, most companies favor using screenshots because they are easy to create.

The mix on usage of videos is interesting, 24% of businesses used abstract videos that don't actually show their product to conceptually convey what the product was about. Slightly more (27.3%) used a video that actually shows their product.

And finally, ending on the best low-friction approach to demonstrating their product, only 4.3% of companies offered an un-gated interactive demo environment to show off what they were capable of.

Who is using Book a Demo buttons?

Let's talk about the companies that decided to use a "Book a Demo" or "Request a Demo" button on their landing page as one of, or their primary call-to-action.

Assuming the prospect is interested, these buttons are typically the gateway to the next stage of the funnel - so you would think that companies would want to make this relatively painless.

We'll start with the % of companies that used a Book a Demo button.

67% - CTA was a Book a Demo button

So the majority of B2B SaaS companies are using Book a Demo buttons.

We assessed whether there was an instant scheduling capability on each website - or a long form requiring the prospect to complete at least 4+ fields in order to submit their enquiry.

82% - Had lengthy enquiry form

Remarkably, a tiny 18% of businesses allowed their prospects to instantly schedule a demo with their sales team.

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