How to create an interactive product demo.

1. Decide what the demo has to prove

A demo is not a tour of the product; it is an argument that the product does one thing the buyer wants. Write that thing in a sentence — 'you can see which accounts went quiet this week without building a report' — and cut every screen that does not serve it. Most first demos are too long because they were captured before the sentence was written.

2. Write the stop list before you capture

List the screens in order, one line each: the screen, the action, what the buyer sees as a result. Six to ten lines. If a step needs two clicks, it is two lines. This list is the script; the capture is just executing it.

• Start on the screen that shows the problem, not the login page.
• Put the 'aha' screen — the result — no later than the middle.
• End on the screen that leads naturally to the call to action.

3. Capture from an account that looks real

Buyers notice 'Test Customer 3'. Use a demo account with plausible names, dates, and numbers, at one window size for the whole lane. Close notifications and chat widgets. Then capture: with a browser extension that screenshots every click, with screenshots you take, or from a recording sliced into frames. Which tool you use matters less than the account you capture from.

4. Place the hotspot where a real user would click

On each stop, the hotspot is the thing the viewer clicks to advance. Put it on the control the workflow actually uses — the button, the row, the tab — not on a convenient blank space. The tooltip says what the buyer gets on this screen ('See which deals stalled this week'), not what the control is called ('Click Reports').

5. Branch and gate only where they earn it

Branching — 'I run ops' / 'I run finance' at stop two — is worth it when two audiences genuinely need different screens; otherwise it is a fork for its own sake. A lead form is worth it past the midpoint of a deeper demo, after the screen that makes people lean in; a form on stop one is a wall. Leave the homepage demo open.

6. Publish, then put it where the decision happens

Publish and open the link in a private window to see exactly what a buyer sees. Embed it above the fold on the product page and beside the plans on the pricing page, or link it from the button that used to say 'book a demo'. Set the last stop's destination to where you want the buyer next.

7. Read the funnel a week later

The per-stop funnel shows where drives stop. The biggest drop between two stops is the one to fix: a hotspot that is hard to find, a gate too early, a screen that answered the question, or a demo that is simply too long. Change one thing, wait a week, compare against the previous period.