Your enthusiasm for your product is contagious. When you talk about it, people grasp the value immediately, but you don’t have time to sit down with every possible user and walk them through it.

That’s where the power of the product demo video comes in: You can capture how your product works and highlight your top use cases in a single shareable video. It’s a powerful form of content marketing—music, transitions, and other video effects all come together to promote your product in an entertaining and engaging way.

Besides being a marketing video, a product demo video is a great sales tool. It shows potential customers what they can do with your product or service without your needing to travel and give a live demonstration.

We’ve selected 11 standout product demo videos to inspire your next product video. These examples cover a wide variety of video formats, but they all use unique, memorable tactics—energetic music, animation, screen recordings—to capture the attention of potential users.

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11 product demo videos that educate and engage

Salesforce: Show a scenario to capture viewers’ attention

Salesforce’s product demo video for their CPQ & Billing tool captivates customers with its scenarios. Along with showing screen recordings, the video highlights situations when a sales rep would need to use their product. Seeing the CPQ & Billing tool in action breaks up the monotony of watching product screenshots, so viewers stay engaged while learning about the product. The character depictions also add a bit of humor to the demo, making it especially entertaining to watch. *Takeaway: *Along with showing visuals of your product, portray how people use your product with scenarios so viewers understand how it works.

Apple: Stimulate with music and color

This Apple product demo for the iPhone XR gets right to the point. In less than 45 seconds, viewers are energized and have enough information to make a purchase. Right from the beginning, bright colors and electro music capture viewers’ attention. New features are named at the bottom of the screen, so customers know what to look forward to in the new phone. Even better, the video shows the phone’s Depth Control feature improving a photo, so viewers can actually see the power of the phone’s features.

Takeaway: Get creative with color and music—they can go a long way toward making your viewers feel excited and happy to use your product.

Headspace: Welcome all users with inclusive casting

Headspace’s product demo video isn’t just educational—it’s also inclusive. The video’s original animated characters encourage viewers to watch and use the product. The characters don’t quite look human, so users of all backgrounds and experiences feel welcome to try Headspace after watching. As a plus, viewers will want to continue watching the video because the cartoon designs are especially cute with their silly, friendly expressions.

Takeaway: Whether you use animation or live video, fill your product demo with an inclusive cast of characters so all types of users feel welcome to try your product.

Western Union: Show your professionalism with a cohesive design

Western Union’s product demo video leaves a positive first impression on viewers with its consistent branded design. Unlike demos that abruptly switch formats, Western Union’s video maintains the same minimalist animated style and yellow background color throughout the entire clip. Even the “screenshots” are drawn to match the style rather than showing actual photos. This cohesive design gives the video a professional look that encourages viewers to keep watching.

Takeaway: Use similar style elements throughout your product demo video to create a professional look that impresses viewers.

Shopify: Highlight your use cases

This product demo video for Shopify’s mobile app is memorable and persuasive because it features so many use cases. You see the app being used in three separate contexts—online only, one-to-one in-person sales, and retail sales—so we know how versatile and useful this product is for merchants of all types.

Takeaway: Highlight multiple ways that your product can be used, and a wide variety of viewers will find your product useful.

Zazzle: Focus on the pain Point

Zazzle, an online marketplace for custom goods, grabs viewers’ attention by highlighting how Zazzle’s product works and what pain point it solves. The demo begins like an explainer video by highlighting the problem Zazzle is geared toward—the time-consuming process of creating custom goods. After explaining this pain point, Zazzle shows how their product is the solution by explaining how it works. A screen recording of a user quickly creating a T-shirt in Zazzle plays, and the narration points out that orders are shipped in just three to five business days.

Takeaway: Viewers will be more willing to learn how your product works if you first explain the pain point it’s solving.

LinkedIn Learning: Tell Viewers what they’ll achieve

LinkedIn Learning strikes the right tone with both actionable and aspirational messaging in their product demo. The video shows how viewers can use the product by highlighting how the tool recommends professional educational content based on skills in viewers’ profiles. Besides mentioning product features, the video excites viewers about LinkedIn Learning by talking about how the tool helps companies meet their business goals with more qualified employees.

Takeaway: Along with explaining how your product works, cover what your product will help viewers achieve so they’re motivated to make a purchase.

Groupon: Shorten to make your demo memorable

Groupon’s product demo video is a lesson in the power of brevity. In just 30 seconds, Groupon explains the purpose of its product and how to use it. The video is memorable not only because it’s short, but also because the design is clear and uncluttered. With just a few icons and screenshots, viewers understand how to purchase deals through Groupon.

Takeaway: If you explain your core product information in a short time, viewers have less information to retain and are more likely to remember how your product works.

Duolingo: Emphasize what’s important with minimal design

The language-learning app Duolingo uses minimal design to quickly teach viewers how the product works. Instead of featuring screenshots, this demo uses single icons to identify and explain each feature. With one image on the video screen at a time, it’s easy to focus on the demo’s messaging about each feature.

Takeaway: Viewers are more likely to remember the details of each product feature if you use a simple, uncluttered design.

Act-on: engage with multiple video formats

Unlike most software demos, Act-On’s product demo doesn’t just use a screen recording of their software—they combine the screenshots with animation. The marketing automation product comes to life on the drawing of a computer screen seamlessly. Combining the two video formats, Act-On engages their viewers in a fun, surprising way.

Takeaway: Experiment with multiple video formats to present your demo in a more unique and engaging way.

Vyond

A product video from our own team shows how you can create a demo to explain how a specific feature, not necessarily the entire product, works. To explain our how to create a square video in Vyond, our video producer Taylor used Wistia’s Soapbox tool to film both himself and capture his screen. Seeing both Taylor and the screen recording makes this demo not only useful but also personable.

Takeaway: Create demos that focus on single features—not your entire product—to show viewers how your product can help them on a more detailed level.

Bonus video: As a contrast, here’s an example of a more produced Vyond product video that does focus on our product as a whole.

Convert potential customers with product demo videos. You don’t need to host a conference booth to show people what they can accomplish with your product video. With a product demo video, you can communicate how your product works and highlight its best features in just a few minutes—anywhere, anytime. Potential customers can not only easily watch your demo but also send the video to their colleagues, friends, and family who might also enjoy your product. Using this guide, you can learn tactics from these 11 standout product videos to create your own engaging demo.

Ready to make your own product demo video? Vyond allows anyone to make professional animated videos—no big budget or design agency needed! If you don’t already have an account, sign up for a free 14-day trial to make your first video.

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