Effective Live Product Demos for your WordPress Plugin or Theme

[00:00:00] Katie Keith: Hello, this is WP Product Talk, the place where every week we interview an experienced WordPress products owner on strategy, tips, experiences, failures, and successes of running successful and thriving WordPress product businesses. I'm Katie Keith, CEO, and co-founder at Barn2 Plugins.

[00:00:54] Matt Cromwell: I'm Matt Cromwell, co-founder at GiveWP and Senior Director of Customer Experience at Stellar WP.

[00:01:01] Katie Keith: And today's topic is effective live product demos for your WordPress plugin or theme.

[00:01:07] Matt Cromwell: I'm excited to talk with our guest today all about this because we've been experimenting a lot with, uh, product demos and find them to be pretty useful overall. And I do think it's a relatively new-ish, uh, feature that some product owners are using over the last couple years more and more often.

[00:01:24] Um, and I think they're really useful. So I'm excited to talk about it with, uh, with our guest.

[00:01:29] Katie Keith: Yeah. And to talk with us today is special guest Vikas Singhal.

[00:01:37] So welcome Vikas. Um, could you introduce yourself and, um, tell us a bit about what you do?

[00:01:44] Vikas Singhal: Hey, Matt. Hey Katie. Uh, thanks for having me, uh, on the screen. So my name is Vikas and I'm the founder of InstaWP. And we basically make it easier for anybody to spin up WordPress sites. So that's a one liner or a one liner pitch for myself and the company.

[00:02:04] Uh, uh, I'm in the WordPress space for last four to five years now, I think. And InstaWP is relatively new and, uh, we have been trying to make it easier to, so the bigger goal is to make it easier for anybody to onboard into WordPress. So that's the bigger vision which we have.

[00:02:24] Matt Cromwell: Nice. And we, we should clarify a little bit.

[00:02:27] Um, we thought of this subject of product demos, um, and a lot of folks do them in a lot of different ways. Uh, I've seen recently that more and more folks are using, uh, InstaWP specifically for product demos, but that's not really the core of your product offering. It just happens to be a benefit that some folks are using as well.

[00:02:47] Can you tell us a little bit about the larger product and everything that you offer?

[00:02:52] Vikas Singhal: So the larger product is, as I said, is more about, um, onboarding people into WordPress. So for example, we have a quick shortcut like wp.new. If you type it on the browser, you get a WordPress site no questions asked. So that's, that's the way, that's ms.

[00:03:09] We have found a pain point. My personal pain point when I started this project was there was still not a good way or an easier way to launch a WordPress site quickly in your browser. Um. Back in like 2021. That's two years ago and it was still a painful process. You have to install something, download a software, and then it's just a mess for new people to who are joining toward press ecosystem.

[00:03:35] Yeah, so that's the pain point that we started with. And, uh, it became quickly became the defacto standard of like, quickly launching test, web test WordPress websites or temporary disposable sites. And a lot of folks, um, like product companies such as yourself started asking, can we use, uh, this to demo our products?

[00:03:58] So of course you can. Then agencies started asking, can we use this to actually build client sites? Of course you can. And then, and then it just. Uh, uh, rest is history, right? It means we, people use the platform in variety of different ways. Um, using it for product demos is just one example of it.

[00:04:20] Matt Cromwell: That's awesome.

[00:04:21] Katie Keith: Yeah, I love that. That's one of my favorite things about having a product business is when you discover new use cases for your product that you may not even have planned. Mm-hmm. And then it's like a whole new marketing opportunity and opens up your market without needing to create a new product. So I really like discovering those things.

[00:04:38] Yeah.

[00:04:39] Vikas Singhal: And that's, it has, it's kind of a like phases of coins. It has both. Um, it's pros and not a con, but, uh, once you start to discover the potential opportunities in a product, different use cases, then you have to actually, the onboarding process and the education piece becomes a little bit tough. Um mm-hmm.

[00:05:05] When you are not focused on a particular use case. And that's where we are at right now. Our product is so robust or so vast in, in terms of use cases. We have to find out specific personas of users. For example, this webinar or this, uh, podcast today is focused on product, uh, owners per se. Yeah, but same. I can go on couple of more podcasts such as this and then talk about a different, completely different use case.

[00:05:34] Yeah, and that's a little bit challenging at the same time, but I just said MOF course. Very, very exciting at the same time.

[00:05:41] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. I can imagine freelancers and agencies have lots of use for InstaWP and mm-hmm. All kinds of things. End users might use it for different purposes and reasons.

[00:05:49] For sure. So, yeah. Yep. Well, folks, uh, we do want to welcome anybody who's paying attention and watching live right now. And, uh, if you have questions or comments, hope streams, aspirations for, uh, live product demos, then uh, post them into the chat and we will answer them live throughout our conversation. Um, but uh, first off, we want to talk about why we think this subject of live product demos for WordPress product owners is so significant and important.

[00:06:20] Um, so, uh, Katie, what's your take?

[00:06:24] Katie Keith: Um, well, I'd say that product sales pages and screenshots are all very well and good, and they're pretty essential. But what really brings a WordPress theme or plugin into life is a live demo. Um, most companies just provide demos of the front end, but people want to see what it's like in the backend too.

[00:06:42] How easy is it to use and what's the learning curve, what features and flexibility is there. Um, so that's all really important. And historically, I would say there hasn't been any really great options for doing that in WordPress. Yeah,

[00:06:57] Matt Cromwell: of

[00:06:58] Katie Keith: course. It's quite tricky 'cause it depends on the product. 'cause some products are really front end heavy and so the user's happy just seeing what it looks like on the front end, whereas others are backend heavy or both.

[00:07:10] So they do need to see the backend. So there isn't a one size fits all approach. So I would want to help product owners think about what's the best needs and that would help their product.

[00:07:21] Matt Cromwell: Yep, absolutely. Yep. Pick us. What take, yeah.

[00:07:25] Vikas Singhal: Yeah, I totally agree on that. There a lot of product owners come to me that, do I need your product?

[00:07:31] But first I have to tell them that, uh, you may or may not need, depending upon your use case, as kd rightly pointed out, if the product has a a very heavy front end use case, then. For example, a theme, right? Which doesn't do much other than which in, in, in the terms of there is not a lot of admin settings for it, and the user is fairly satisfied by just looking at the front end of it, but almost more than 50% of cases where users will have to play around with the settings and see their results themselves.

[00:08:05] Right? Um. A lot of stel products are like that, and I think a lot of e-commerce plugins, which, uh, I'm sure Bond two, uh, is doing are like that. But as I said, not a hundred percent of the product need that. Yeah.

[00:08:20] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. I, I really like talking about this. Like I mentioned in the intro, um, the whole idea of doing live, uh, demos in WordPress products, I feel like is relatively new.

[00:08:32] Um, not brand new. Like it's definitely been a thing for a few years now. It does, yeah. But previously folks were like, well, if you wanna. Try my product, like I've got a free plugin. Just install it on your WordPress site and try it out. Uh, like that was the mentality, but the truth is so many products today.

[00:08:52] In order for them to really shine, you kind of really have to dial them in correctly, uh, so that folks will see the use and the power of it. You might even need to do some sort of like admin, like walkthrough demo as well, uh, just to say like, I know that here's a settings panel, but like, did you know if you go over to the post edit screen you'll see X, Y, and Z.

[00:09:14] That's really cool too. Mm-hmm. And if you can have a guided tour, uh, of the admin, that would be really helpful for some folks. You can do that. With a system like in WP, where you create a template that has a pre-installed, uh, thing in it, and then you can go through all those things, um, and give people the, the best experience of your product after it's already been configured.

[00:09:34] 'cause a lot of times that configuration phase is just kind of a chore. Um, and that you don't get people to success. You don't get them to. The, the aha moment of the plugin mm-hmm. When you to click install and activate. Um, so I, I think being able to put your best foot forward, um, with these product demos is, is why I think it's significant and important personally.

[00:09:57] Vikas Singhal: Yep. Um, miss people, as you said, people have been setting up demos using different plugins, like a multi-site kind of, uh, infrastructure or maybe a shared admin demo where they share. The same admin demo with multiple people, right? And all of these approaches and or you can just spin up something of your own, which is not a new concept as you said, but the end of the day, uh, I think the most important factor which you test upon is getting your potential customer to success.

[00:10:30] Is, is first of all, is setting means, setting the, setting up a product. Demo is itself, is an art. Uh, a lot of companies have figured it out. Um, with Gravity have figured it out already. Uh, I, I give that. Piece as an education to my, so whoever joins our uh, uh, community in a way that you do, you should, even though you are a customer, but I want you to be successful, and the way you become successful is to make your end users know about your product.

[00:11:00] Successfully. Yeah. And to do that, the product demo instance itself needs to be set up very, very tight. Means, uh, all the, all the possible use cases needs to be covered and you have to guide them through the admin UI or whatever. It, it can be anything. And I, as I said, best is to get inspired from others who have done it best.

[00:11:22] Yeah. Right. So, and Gravity is one of them. Uh, I think, uh, learned as has set up very well as well, so. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:29] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Yeah. Those are excellent examples. I wanna highlight a couple folks here in the wings. Uh, we're always, uh, live and, um, uh, we have folks who are chiming in. Um, Zach Katz is one of our co-hosts.

[00:11:41] He's here watching with us as well. Good to see you, Zach. Uh, Kevin, bat Dorf, good to see you. Thanks for being here. Saying hi. Um, Satya, uh, is using, uh, slack emoji. I'd love to have a pink, waving hand, uh, emoji in our, uh, comments here. But thanks you all for being here. Um, yeah. So next one up is we wanna talk a little bit about our personal experiences with this subject.

[00:12:05] Uh, in particular, um, I think I'll try to kick it off, um, and talk about some of the things we've been doing. Over the years, we have tried to introduce folks to the GiveWP Plugin in so many different ways. Um, I'll use, GiveWP as the primary example. Um, and uh, at first we really did try to, uh, really, really encourage people to install the free plugin that was like.

[00:12:28] Go install the free plugin, try it out. Uh, that's the best way to get to know things. Um, and then we found out people were trying it out on their live environment and sometimes breaking things and it gets like a little bit hairy when, um, uh, when you're just encouraging folks to just install a plugin just to see if they like it or not.

[00:12:46] Um, and uh, then we started doing a lot more videos. Um, I do think, uh, a lot of this kind of question depends a lot on your audience and what they like, what they want. Uh, I'm always one who's like, don't gimme a video. Like, I would love to have a nice article that I can skim please, uh, with screenshots.

[00:13:05] That would be great. Um, so we leaned heavily on tutorials and documentation and screenshots and video. Um. But even then, it's not particularly hands on. Um, then we launched a, a live demo site, uh, a sub site demo and it's still there, I believe demo dot GiveWP.com. And there we really tried to. Put focus on all of the different ways that you might want to learn about the free plugin, which is screenshots and videos and texts, but also we were like, give it a test drive.

[00:13:39] Um, and we have a button, uh, form, uh, that they fill out and it launches, and it's the WP instance. Um, and I helped kind of build out a, an admin demo area of, uh, like when they, when they, when it spins up and they log in for the first time. There's a, a modal that's like, welcome to the give admin area. Um, and here you can go make a post or you can check out some settings or you can go see your donors and give them kind of like a choose your own adventure kind of route.

[00:14:08] Um, I felt like that was a good way to go about it. Um, what I was surprised by, uh, is that, um, we also gave the option for folks to sign up for a, um, uh, a webinar group demo, uh, as well. And, uh, I really expected that the live demo would just be like 90% of people would just want to be doing the live demo.

[00:14:31] Let me get my hands on it right away. Um, I think it's unique to our audience, but it was more like 40%, um, sometimes even less. Maybe 30% of folks were wanting to get their hands on the plugin. Uh, the other ones were a mix of wanting to do the webinar, the group webinar. Or just looking at videos or opting into white paper stuff like there was, because there were several different options, um, but only 25, 30%, maybe at the most, sometimes 40% wanted to get their hands dirty on a live demo.

[00:15:04] So that was really interesting to me in particular. Um, yeah. That's where I'm coming from, um, personally. Um, but I do like the way that we've seen some of that, uh, launch on other stellar brands like LearnDash in particular, like the events calendar in particular. The events calendar really takes a few things to really get it to set up and like actually have a physical calendar that has events on it.

[00:15:26] For example, being able to preload that right out of the box and be like, oh, look at all these great events you've got. Um, it's a lot easier to just dump 'em into an area like that that has stuff, uh, in advance. Um, yeah. Katie, what about you? What are your experiences to date with, uh, live demos?

[00:15:44] Katie Keith: So we've always just done front end demos of all of our plugins, um, except for a couple where we've not had any demo at all.

[00:15:53] For example, we have one plugin, which, um, WooCommerce as multiple email recipients, which just adds extra email fills. To like the checkouts and things. So we didn't feel that justified a demo site. It's pretty obvious what it does, whereas all our other plugins, we've just done a front end demo plus screenshots on the sales page.

[00:16:13] But that's always created dilemmas because it's fine for the front end plugins, like, uh, say a document library or something like that where you can see it in the front end. And yeah, people might want to see what the admin options are, but at least they can visualize the plugin in the front end. But we have quite a lot of plugins, which allow you to restrict access to content on a WordPress site.

[00:16:35] So that might be sort of pass, uh, blog categories, WooCommerce product categories. We have a wholesale plugin. We have a WooCommerce private store plugin that hides your whole shop. So how do you show that on a front end demo? The way we've done that is by having things like, um, a password on the demo. So it's like, here, this is your private store login page, enter username, password to unlock it.

[00:17:01] But that's not super user friendly because it requires the user to actually read the text on the demo and nobody does that of course. So I've always felt a bit uncomfortable about, um, the way we have demoed some of our products. Hmm. So, um, what we are doing now is a project to kind of, um, experiment with InstaWP having met Vikas in, um, Athens at Work Camp Europe.

[00:17:28] Um, it's taken us a while to get round to it, but this is great timing for me actually, because this week, um, my husband and co-founder Andy has been spending time setting up one of our plugins with Insta WP. And it's looking really great. Um, but there are a lot of decisions to make, as you said earlier, to really showcase your product in the best possible way.

[00:17:50] Mm-hmm. So there are dilemmas, like what page do you start them on? And I'd love any advice about that. Um, which actually fits in with Zach's question

[00:18:00] Matt Cromwell: Exactly. Um.

[00:18:00] Katie Keith: So, yeah, maybe we should move on to that now. How do you, where do you start them?

[00:18:05] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. How do you recommend onboarding users to your product when setting up product demos?

[00:18:10] So this is a question that you have yourself, Katie, is what you're saying.

[00:18:13] Katie Keith: Yeah. So if, if for anybody who doesn't know, you can use InstaWP to pre-populate a demo site, which the user can then edit as they choose, and then it disappears at whatever period you've specified. I think we are gonna go with four hours or something like that.

[00:18:29] Um, and, but the thing we've been debating this week is where should we start people, should we open this? Set up wizard, even though we've already set it up on the front end. Should we open a front end page and expect them to find their way to the admin through the WordPress toolbar at the top? Should we open a settings page in the admin that if it's a custom post type, should you open the list of custom posts, like documents or whatever?

[00:18:55] So where would you start People to really have a successful onboarding experience so they know what to do.

[00:19:03] Vikas Singhal: Yeah, I guess it's one of those decisions where. You have to do AB testing, right? Which works best for your users. I generally recommend, uh, means figuring out the major pain point of your customers.

[00:19:17] What is the first question they ask? When they see their plug, when, when they see your plugin? For example, I was actually browsing Document Library Pro the other day. Uh, because there was a use case where I wanted to build a video library on instead, WP, to show like, like an academy or a documentation, uh, using a series of videos.

[00:19:36] Um, and then while I was browsing it, the first question which came to my mind, can I style this page according to my needs? Is can I, can I change the layout? Um, can I use bigger thumbnails? Or whatever that question may be. And then over a period of like. Running your business, you know, those top three questions.

[00:19:57] So I I, I will suggest you start from there, right? If a, if a plugin is complex and your onboarding solves that, I will say leave the onboarding on. Right. So start will basically push people to the onboarding interface and that onboarding should take care of the majority of the questions. Hmm. If, if you think that it's better.

[00:20:18] For the users to already onboard it with. Couple of examples. Pre-built, pre-populated, uh, and then you showcase. So I'll take example of gravity. So they create about 10 different forms for diff different use cases. And um, for each use case they have built a form, but they also. And a page inside the WordPress, uh, site itself, which shows which itself becomes a landing page.

[00:20:45] So the WordPress site itself becomes a landing page and they redirect users to the homepage of the WordPress site, but logged in the user is auto logged in because instead we can give you the auto login feature. So in a way, what you're doing like two things at the same time. You are letting people know that this is what the product is all about.

[00:21:06] So this is form one, this is form two, this is form three. And then at the same time, you just click on a form and then edit it, right? Mm-hmm. So, so you are essentially, I think what comes out of from this story is that you show what all things are possible with your product, and then you allow people to click on a button and then experience.

[00:21:28] Themselves what, what it is all about. So it's, it's more about like giving them the breadth of your product and then they themselves should go deep into the product. That will be their browsing experience. Mm. So I think that's the best way to do it.

[00:21:43] Matt Cromwell: Nice. I like that a lot. Yeah, I mentioned that earlier, that, um, what one thing we did was give them options of where they wanted to go.

[00:21:52] Like as soon as you log in, we popped up a modal and said, welcome. This is a tour or, or a demo. And here's where you might like to go. If they did choose to like go see the donors, it was kind of like, well, you go see the donors and then well, there they are and there's not a lot to do there. Um, and, and then there wasn't necessarily much more guidance after that.

[00:22:14] So there's definitely more that we could have done to. To continue the guided tour and things like that. But I love that idea of using the front end of the site, which is far more customizable than the admin area. Yeah, it's, you can

[00:22:28] Vikas Singhal: build literally anything on the block editor. Yeah. You don't even need to use a page editor for that.

[00:22:33] And it means you literally can build like a one pager landing page so that your demo site itself becomes a marketing side. Exactly. Uh, it's not just a demo site, it's a marketing plus demo site. Absolutely. Yep.

[00:22:45] Matt Cromwell: We

[00:22:45] Vikas Singhal: also, so

[00:22:45] Katie Keith: that's interesting because if we're landing people on the front end and they're seeing the product.

[00:22:51] Is that an argument to get rid of the existing front end demos? Because we were thinking of giving users a choice. Do you want to just demo, you know, the site that's set up, or do you want to create your own editable version of it to play around with? Mm-hmm. But if we're taking them straight to the front end, which looks like our existing demo size, could we get rid of our existing sites?

[00:23:13] Or do you think they have different purposes?

[00:23:15] Vikas Singhal: I think that that serves different purposes. The front end demo without. Much of a setup is a quick way to browse around, but you can have like a button somewhere or multiple places that try spin this up for my, for me, or try this as a live in a live environment.

[00:23:32] Uh, and that takes them to the exact same page where they want to go. And in CWP you can actually set up their starting page where you want them to land. I think that's, that's the experience. But as we discussed earlier, it depends upon plugin to plugin. In some cases, you don't even need to show the front end demo.

[00:23:51] You can just put them directly into the live demo as you said. That's an interesting, uh, observation. Yes. Mm-hmm.

[00:23:58] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely. I, I wanna throw out just one kind of tangent a little bit. Uh, the, one of the biggest uses that we have for Insta WP in particular. Is we use it a ton for technical support purposes.

[00:24:10] Um, and I think it's also so useful and valuable for that as well. Um, we just are spinning up sites all the time to try to replicate issues. Um, and if we do replicate it, we hand it over to the developers to be like, here, this is where you can replicate that problem. Uh, it ends up being super useful in those cases as well.

[00:24:28] Also in for the customers themselves when they're like, oh, uh, this is not working, that is not working. We could send them the login link to that site and be like. Um, go and check if it's working over here. Um, uh, which ends up being super useful for them as well. But, um, lots of use cases. For instance, lots of

[00:24:45] Vikas Singhal: use cases as we, as we stated earlier, um, one of the best use cases we have found product companies using it is.

[00:24:54] Customer support, but by copying their lifestyle. So we have a plugin mm-hmm. Which can be installed on the customer side. Um, I guess, did you tweet about it, Katie? Yeah, recently, a few days ago. I didn't

[00:25:07] Katie Keith: know InstaWP could be used for an instant way of, of cloning a site because customers hate being told to set up a staging site

[00:25:15] Matt Cromwell: because

[00:25:16] Katie Keith: not all hosts make that easy.

[00:25:17] So I was like. Ooh, that could be a real benefit for support.

[00:25:21] Vikas Singhal: Yeah. Even though Miss there is a facility inside the hosting panel, not a lot of customers are familiar with it and miss creating an option within the dashboard and also like a partial staging, so they skip the media folder and things like that.

[00:25:35] Mm-hmm. So that becomes a real, real, really useful tool. Yeah. And it's talking about different use cases. Sometime even I wondered, okay, can we do this as well? Mm-hmm. And that becomes like a, uh, and then the product team says, yes, you have forgotten that we can do this. So that's really great. Yeah.

[00:25:55] Matt Cromwell: It's actually a good topic that I feel like we've touched on in different episodes about just how, like what Katie highlighted, that it's great when you land on a use case that you didn't know that you had originally.

[00:26:07] But at the same time, like you said, it's like it's great, but now you're responsible for that use case. Like as soon as you go down that path, now you actually have to like cater to those customers and their wants and needs. Um, I remember one of my favorite stories was from Pippin Williamson, uh, from Easy Digital Downloads, he said.

[00:26:24] I like to listen to customers as much as possible, but they keep asking for a shipping add-on for easy digital downloads, and it's never going to happen. Like yeah, it's just one of those, one of those lines you have to draw at some point. It's like, this is our purpose. And that's not our purpose, so. Right.

[00:26:42] Do you, have you been having that struggle at all, Vicki? In terms of like, uh, you can expand and expand and you can become a whole entire hosting, manage WordPress hosting platform if you want it at this stage. Yeah. Um, are you talking about those types of things internally?

[00:26:56] Vikas Singhal: Yeah, every single day. So that, that has been one of the issues is saying no to use cases because we get so many, because of the nature of the product.

[00:27:08] Um, we wanted to become a platform and becoming a platform is not an easy thing. When we started, as I've said in a couple of interviews, that I want to become AWS for WordPress. Um, it's just a wake term, so, so, so much a wake term. But right now what we have found. Our purpose is to limit ourselves in solving those major use cases, which can drive revenue for other company, which is like the honest truth, and also to solve majority of the customer's problem, which nobody else is solving in a proper way.

[00:27:40] Yeah, so that is, I think that's where you have to put your foot down. Yeah,

[00:27:43] Matt Cromwell: definitely. Absolutely. Um, I did wanna touch on a little bit of, uh, different types of product demos because Insta WP is a great option, but like I mentioned a little bit earlier, there are lots of different mediums you could use. I don't want everyone here to think that only a live product demo is, is the way to go here.

[00:28:03] Um, like I mentioned, uh, I, I do think that videos can be really instructive and really informative, especially if you're using like, uh. On YouTube, at least you can use the chapters tool to allow folks to be able to skip to different parts of a really long video in order to see what they want to see. Uh, I think those are useful.

[00:28:21] I've seen a lot of video, uh, platforms now that are offering. Interactive elements within the VI video that, that you can actually ask people questions in the video and say, uh, what would you like to see next? And you give them options and then they could skip to those things by clicking on the video. Um, I, there's a particular term for that, I forget what it's called, um, but um, uh, those are, I think, are super useful as well.

[00:28:46] We've had a lot of success personally, also with these group webinars or one-on-one webinars even, where, where we're basically doing their, they're basically pre-sales, uh, uh, zoom calls, uh, with our customers. And I do think that's a little bit unique in the WordPress space overall. Um, but we do find, uh, um, that they've been valuable for us.

[00:29:06] We do. As a whole for, for GiveWP in particular, we have like an average job size of about $240, uh, uh, per customer. Uh, which in the end does justify, um, uh, a little bit more time on the pre-sales side of things. Mm-hmm. Um, so there are lots of different options. Um, Katie, have you considered other types of, um, uh, demoing for your customers in any way?

[00:29:32] Katie Keith: Yeah. One of the challenges for me is having many different products is that you'd need, we've got like 23 products, so that would be a lot of webinars, so I love the idea. Mm-hmm. But I, I suppose we could do that for our most popular products then that might justify it. Our, uh, average order value is exactly half what you just said.

[00:29:53] Ours is about $120 rather than 200 plus. So we, but then if it's a group webinar, then that's less time per user, so it might be worth it. For, for the bigger products. I saw something really cool, um, a few months ago on a SaaS website where they'd kind of embedded a sort of their product in, in an editable way into the page, into their homepage.

[00:30:19] So, uh, I can't remember what it was, but you could actually click on it and changed stuff and it was within the sales page. So I thought that was a really instant way of getting the demo. But for me it's always a dilemma as to what to prioritize. So you've got the top of your sales page and you've got your pricing and buy type buttons, and you've got a maybe a front end demo and a backend demo, and do you put a video there and it's like how you have to kind of offer or a webinar.

[00:30:51] So how do you choose which one is the most important, um, given that users do want different things?

[00:30:58] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Cool. Cool. Well, we are, uh, getting into our last segment at this stage and, um, it's honestly one of my favorites. Um, I love being able to talk about just the best advice that we have for any, uh, WordPress product owner who's trying to get into this for the very first time.

[00:31:17] Um, I think we can do it in a couple different ways. Like, uh, sometimes I say let's give an elevator pitch like. Like you're passing somebody in the hallway track at work camp. They're like, Hey, how do I get started with InstaWP, you got like two seconds while they're walking away. What's your pitch there?

[00:31:32] But let's say it's more of like a, a quick little chat together or we got some time and space. So what's our best advice for folks who want to do live product demos, um, and are just getting started with it? Uh, Vics you wanna start us off?

[00:31:48] Vikas Singhal: Okay. Um, I think this, I think what we have discussed before. I can go back to it a little bit.

[00:31:55] Um, is find a pain point which your customers are experiencing, um, when they are trying to understand the, what your product does, right? If the landing page, it's not enough, if the screenshots are not enough, if the videos are not enough, uh, if a prerecorded webinars are not enough, I guess. Uh, miss having a admin demo is, goes a long, long way.

[00:32:23] And the admin demo do does not only become like a way to demo the product, it becomes like a lead magnet actually at that point. Mm-hmm. Because you can collect email addresses from your users if you want to with their permission, and then send them a list of, uh, emails over the next, uh, period of, let's say seven to 14 days for them to nurture and then let them know about more about your product.

[00:32:47] And, uh, that, that way you, you have to actually. See the at, at the end of the day, the goal is for you to talk about your product, uh, as much as the user wants to listen in the way that they understand, right? Uh, I think that's the, that's the goal you, you want to accomplish. And then the honest truth is that you want to convert the user to a paid customer, um, which it doesn't matter however.

[00:33:15] Which way you look at it, and these are all the different ways which we are discussing is like different, different kind of. Mechanisms to do that. So getting that lead leads into your database and they started executing it and then sending a mail again on maybe a Black Friday, and then have a clear unsubscribe button, right?

[00:33:35] If, uh, that is, is something of a, that is always, uh, a pest. Uh. Kind of, uh, uh, practice to do it. Yeah. So, and, uh, webinars are also great lead magnet. So if somebody wants a personal demo, so it can be prerecorded or a live demo, but if the ticket size is good, I wish we have $240 of a ticket size. Mm-hmm. But if you have that, then I, I guess personal levels are one of the best way to convert somebody.

[00:34:06] Uh, but in instead, WP, uh, even though we make it so easy to launch a WordPress side, communicating the benefits, uh, as we are meant, we have discussed earlier, becomes a pain point for us. So I generally hop onto, uh, live demos and then do personally, and I have one more person, uh, to do that. And those really work well for us.

[00:34:30] Um. And then as a SaaS platform, we look at more like an LTV value rather than, uh, the first ticket size value. So if your LTV is high enough and it, it justifies a personal demo, then why not?

[00:34:43] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. No, that's really good stuff. That's great. Vics. Katie, what's your take? Um, maybe a little bit, um, preaching to yourself a little bit as you're jumping into it right now, but, uh, what's your best advice?

[00:34:57] Katie Keith: My best advice based on what I'm doing now is to put yourself in the customer's shoes and think about their experience of discovering your product for the first time on the, in the context, not necessarily of installing it on their own website, but viewing a demo site that you've already set up. So I've learned a lot about our document library plugin just by.

[00:35:20] Viewing the InstaWP demo and thinking about what pages to include and where to direct people and things. And I'm thinking about it like, well, if what, if they start on this page, how will they know to go to this page or this other place even exists with different settings? And then I started thinking. Maybe that's an issue in the plugin more generally for all our users.

[00:35:41] Mm-hmm. And not just in a demo. So yeah, put yourself in their shoes and really think about that journey, because that's what's ultimately going to convert them into a paying customer.

[00:35:53] Vikas Singhal: It's actually funny, miss, when you talk about that. A lot of plugin developers I speak to, they say that if I expose my admin panel, nobody will buy my plugin.

[00:36:03] Katie Keith: Oh

[00:36:04] Vikas Singhal: dear. That might be something work on. They shouldn't be selling it

[00:36:06] Katie Keith: then.

[00:36:07] Vikas Singhal: So I, I. Of course there are some complex plugins which are difficult to set up, but there are just exceptions. But in, in general, if people are finding it difficult to use the admin panel to set up something in a plugin, then there is like a larger problem.

[00:36:23] Yeah. Uh, inside and, and I think. I think solving that itself will help the plugin in the long term.

[00:36:30] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely. That's a really good one. Um, me personally, I'm gonna be a little bit, uh, a little bit different take. Um, I think if you're just getting started, the most important thing you can do is talk with your customers as much as possible.

[00:36:44] Um, and so I wouldn't. Start with a live demo that folks can just jump into and jump out of without any interaction. Um, I really would recommend, uh, doing the weekly, uh, uh, like Zoom webinar type of thing. Uh, get people on a call. Um, get them, uh, asking questions. Uh, especially if you're a, a founder or a co-founder and you're like, I'm building this myself.

[00:37:09] This is my business. Um, I'm excited about it. I'm passionate about it. People love meeting you. Um, and they feel like they're insiders getting on the beginning of a, of a, of a new career and things like that. Um, they'll give you feedback for years. Um, things like that. It is, it does take time. Um, but I think it's kind of like, it's a, uh.

[00:37:29] Killing several birds with one stone. Uh, you, you basically, I don't love that phrase, but like, you get to get a lot of things done at once. Um, you get a lot of customer insight. You, you start to build loyalty for your product. Um, you get a lot of feedback on the spots of your product that aren't cool, that the customers are like, that's weird.

[00:37:47] Why would you do that? Um, and you get to actually answer all their questions right in one call. And hopefully turn them into great customers. Um, so I'm not gonna, Zach has comment. He is being, I'm not what now I have to show it. I don't kill birds. You said it now. I don't kill birds. I don't. Um, um, so yeah, that, that, that's my take.

[00:38:11] Uh, talk to your customers as much as possible. Be the live demo, um, that you want them to see. Um, and, uh, I think that'll go, that'll pay dividends in the long run. So

[00:38:22] Vikas Singhal: one more advice, which, uh, miss is, and which we have not talked about so far, is, uh, in the context of live demos, it, it, it may be like, uh, admin demos or not.

[00:38:32] That doesn't really matter. But if you have, if you are comfortable with software like Microsoft Clarity or Hotjar, I think that is also a very good way to understand your customers without even talking to them. Mm-hmm. Because you are not installing that software in a sensitive part of, uh, their website.

[00:38:49] You're actually installing in a demo environment, which is controlled, so you can see their mouse movement and you can actually see the recordings, how they're using it. And I suggest some, sometimes to install that on the InstaWP demo sites. Mm-hmm. And then you can actually log into your customer's demo sites, uh, the potential users who are using the demo sites from the admin panel, from from the InstaWP dashboard, and you can see how they're actually going through the demo to make your proper product better and better over time.

[00:39:19] Uh, but I totally agree, uh, with you, Mads, if you're just starting out, I think you just, you should keep it simple. Just talk to your customers, understand how they're using the product, and then figure out the journeys which other, other users will also get, uh, will be, will basically those, the outcome of those, those discussions should translate into the product in a way that it becomes more useful to other, other people as well.

[00:39:44] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:39:46] Katie Keith: Yeah, I really like that it touches on something you referred to briefly earlier, Vic, which was AB testing. Mm-hmm. And I forgot to follow up, but I was thinking, how do you AB test on an InstaWP demo? So is that the way to do it? Then you install something like Hotjar to track what your users are doing?

[00:40:06] Vikas Singhal: Yeah. So you can install Hotjar inside the demo sites. And those will be recorded in your Hotjar account or clarity account, and you can just view those at a later point of time. That becomes like a database of different people experiencing your product, and I think that's a gold mine when, when we do that for our SaaS application or when we want to understand customer behavior.

[00:40:31] And then with that gives us like a collective input of, uh, a lot of customers, uh, if they are not clicking a button, which is which you thought they are going to click, and they never click it. So that's, uh, that's an input for you, right? It means you just, just change that button. Color means, I think, Katie, you have been sharing a lot of insights on Twitter recently and I've been following that.

[00:40:53] So even though even just sharing, even just changing, uh, uh, links. Text goes a long way, right when you're AB testing something. Yeah.

[00:41:03] Katie Keith: Yeah. I love that because it means for version one, you need to go with your kind of best guess as to where to start the user, but actually you can really get an evidence-based way to make a final decision on that over time.

[00:41:17] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. That's awesome. Yep. If only We still had Google Optimize though, man. That was so great. They also just announced again today, sunset and Google Podcasts too, so. Oh, fortunately we're already on Google Music podcast over here, so we're all set. Dick Gus, thank you so much for being here. Uh, really appreciate your insights.

[00:41:39] Um, it's been really a great conversation overall.

[00:41:43] Vikas Singhal: Yeah, same here. Thanks for having me, Matt and Katie. This was wonderful. Um, I get to speak about my product and also, uh, talk about a lot of a, a pain point area with a lot of product owners. Actually, face and I have been a plugin and theme, uh, shop. We, we have a plugin and theme shop in the past, so I do understand how difficult it is to run that shop and how difficult it is to like convey your value prop.

[00:42:11] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much everybody. It's been great. Next week we actually are gonna have, uh, a good friend and, and colleague of mine, Ben Ritner, uh, co-founder of, uh, or founder of, uh, cadence wp. Um, and, uh, we're excited to talk with him about product innovation. Uh, Ben has been innovating in the WordPress space for years and years.

[00:42:33] Internally at Stellar. We're always leaning on him for new ideas. Uh, the, the whole way in which we're rolling out Cadence AI is all really geared around Ben's, uh, intuition, uh, for products. Um, so I'm excited to bring him here and talk about how can we all be more and more innovative in our approach to products.

[00:42:51] So, with that said, have a good week everybody. We'll see you next time.