Know-How Exchange : Other

For non-interactive demos I would keep it at 90secs or less. Why? Because it's basically a commercial. Would you want to sit through a 2-5 minute commercial?

Alternatively, you could offer 2 demos, a long and short version, letting the visitor choose which one. Your web stats will show you which one is most used.

For interactive demos where the viewer has a chance to watch and click a "next" or Exit" button....I would keep it under 3 minutes based on someone clicking "next" repeatedly to get to the end. Therefore, pack in as much info into each page to make the most use of everyone's time.

Robodemo has a cool program that designs demos and promos that you can integrate with Flash. Very Cool!

Check it out at www.macromedia.com

Good luck!

I'm not a dentist, but I visit one every 6 months.

I suggest using the drill-down method. Start out with a 15 second flash demo, with screaming headlines that get your main benefit in front of the customer. At the end of that demo there should be links to different flash demos, each one specificially targeted to a concern of the prospective customer. That way, the prospect is not stuck in a long boring technical presentation that is not catering to their individual needs and concerns.

Here is how you plan this:
Invite a potential customer to stop what they're doing for 15 seconds. Tell them the main benefit of your product. Ask them "do you want to buy it?". If their first response is no, rework your main benefit message until they say something other than "no". Then note what they say.

If it's "how much does it cost?", then that's a separate flash demo that talks about the cost and the payback, and how they can justify it's purchase.

If it's "how does it work?", then that's a separate flash demo that gives an overview of how it works. If they still need more information. Use more drill down levels to explain things in more detail.


This is a lot of work, and you may think it will be expensive and overkill, but the purpose of your website is to sell product on a volume basis. The flash demo has to act like a live salesperson, who is able to present information, read the prospect's interest level, and take them to the next step.

The demo presents the information, the links at the end of the segment attempt to "read" the prospect and take them to the next level.

Calculate your return on investment through this concept: "How much would it cost you to have 100 salespeople, each presenting to a single captive prospect at various locations thoughout the world?"
That is the promise and the potential of the Internet website and a flash demo. Obviously the flash demo will be a cheaper means to do that, and once you build it, you don't have to pay it commissions on each sale it closes.

I hope you have enough $$$ in your marketing and advertising budget for a great flash demo. I've seen too many (especially from large companies like Intuit - makers of Quickbooks, etc) that are a complete waste of my precious consumer time. One I particularly liked was Questia.com, an online research library. Although it is a bit long on the intro, it features speed controls, a duration bar, and links to other sections, so you can jump to what interests you the most.