‍People.ai is an AI data platform built for revenue teams to identify and scale the right go-to-market efforts. For nearly a decade, the AI-based platform has helped enterprises  collect, enrich, and leverage cross-channel sales data.

This case-study explores how Stephanie Madsen (Director of Product Marketing, People.ai) and her team bring this sophisticated product to the spotlight with Storylane.

The Challenge

1. Seeing is believing

Given its multifaceted nature, verbalizing the true value of People.ai can be challenging. That said, prospects who see the product in action are quick to recognize and appreciate its unique value.

“Our message can be very hard to articulate verbally — but once our prospects see the technology, there’s this light bulb moment where they go: ‘oh now I get it!’” 

This disconnect between People.ai’s prospects and product had an impact on lead generation and conversions. This was the larger challenge that motivated People.ai’s push for interactive demos.

People.ai initially experimented with Walnut, an interactive demo tool built primarily for sales use-cases. However, the solution struggled to keep up with People.ai’s broader scope of marketing requirements (more on this in the next section). People.ai soon switched over to Storylane, and here we are now!

2. One tool, many needs

Picking the right tool in a crowded, competitive category can be quite challenging. When People.ai began the search for a demo automation tool, the objective was to find one solution that could support a wide range of marketing use-cases. People.ai evaluated vendors based on 10 requirements: 

1. Ability to anonymize on-screen data (blur sensitive info)
2. Ability to edit on-screen content (text, images, files, etc)
3. Scope for both guided and unguided experiences
4. Ability to easily share demo assets
5. Scope to build a demo library
6. Reporting and analytics functionality
7. Ability to embed demos on web, mobile, and email
8. A user friendly, code-free interface
9. Scope for lead generation forms/email capture 
10. And finally, native Marketo integration

Granted, this is quite the wishlist for a single tool — but Storylane happens to solve for every single one! 

The Solution

Why Storylane?

Storylane is one of few products that successfully solves for all 10 of People.ai’s marketing requirements.

Beyond these requirements, People.ai also attribute their purchase decision to the quality of Storylane’s Sales and Customer Support. Here’s what Stephanie had to say about her customer experience:

What stood out with Storylane was their dedication to understanding our specific use-cases. Even when our requirements weren't met by the out-of-the-box product, Storylane went out of the way to develop bespoke functionality tailored to our needs. In contrast, the other vendors we spoke with simply said “We cannot do this.” 

Throughout the purchase process, working with a team that actively engages in discussions, identifies solutions, and implements recommendations was valuable. This hands-on service is not found in a lot of companies.

Needless to say, it’s critical for an interactive product demo to remain as true to the product as possible. A key functionality of People.ai involves an intuitive feature that returns insightful, detailed answers to ad hoc queries around sales and revenue.

The team needed an interesting and easy to digest approach to showcase this product. Accordingly, when People.ai requested an option for a “typewriter effect”, we were happy to oblige. What began as a bespoke feature built for People.ai is now standard to Storylane. A mutually beneficial outcome for People.ai and Storylane alike!

Use-cases with Storylane

People.ai’s primary objective with Storylane is to showcase an immersive product experience across the customer journey. But what started off as a couple of simple use-cases has quickly evolved into a potpourri of applications. Here’s how Stephanie and her marketing team leverage Storylane today:

1. On Website - Guided Demos  

People.ai features a crisp, 12-step tour on their website to help visitors learn more about the product. This is a great way to give prospects an initial taste of how People.ai can help their business. 

“Now, by bringing our product front and center, we can help bridge that gap between our prospects and our product. Prospects can experience the product directly on our homepage and say “Yes, these are burning revenue questions I’m keen to answer” 

People.ai is a multi-product platform. Accordingly, they also showtcase a dedicated demo for one of their flagship product pages: SalesAI. This demo is extra special, having won the "Best Design" award at the first ever Demo Dundies! Take a look here:

2. Sales Enablement - Discovery & Leave Behinds

Discovery calls can be incredibly lopsided. On one hand, you have prospects interested in learning more about a solution. On the other hand, sellers are taught to qualify leads with one-sided questions around the buyer’s pain-points, budget, timeline, etc. 

People.ai opts for an alternative “give and get” approach to discovery calls. This involves buyers sharing basic details about their needs in exchange for a relevant Storylane demo. These leave behinds support what was verbally discussed and encourages prospects to eventually arrange full fledged sales demos.

Storylane provides a smoother sales enablement experience for buyers and sellers alike:

• Safe, glitch-free demo environments for confident product walkthroughs
• Ability to customize on-screen text, data, and media for personalized assets
• Controlled, consistent demos via pre configured product flows and narratives

“I wanted our demo to look and feel as real our product as possible”

3. Webinars and LinkedIn Lives

While the previous two use-cases are par for the course, People.ai also experiments with Storylane for Webinar and LinkedIn Lives. Albeit relatively uncommon, this a great way to stand out from static decks  and presentations. For one, Storylane demos ensure webinars take place without any pesky glitches. They also empower marketers to lead demonstrations without dependencies on sales engineers. 

4. In-person Events

The marketing team at People.ai frequently works booths and pop-ups during on-site events. As part of this effort, they simply “play” Storylane product tours in the background to draw in more engagement. Again, the cherry on top is that the data and content within these product demos may be customized without any code  or SE dependency.

In addition to these use-cases, People.ai also uses Storylane to create anonymized product screenshots for various use-cases across socials, outreach, and sales enablement by quickly editing out sensitive data.

“The GTM team asks for anonymized or personalized screenshots and 30 seconds later I’m like “Here you go!”

The Results

Impact and Next Steps

Storylane has a broad impact on People.ai’s marketing and sales efforts:

• People.ai's interactive demo achieved close to 40,000 views in 90 days
• More than half of interactive demo sessions achieve at least 75% completion rates
• There’s consistently positive feedback from customers on the accessible product tours
• Month-on-month increase in website engagement, page views per session, and time spent

But the real takeaway is how quickly all of this was set up. No unintuitive coding or tedious onboarding, just a user-friendly product with tons of functionality.

“I captured, anonymized, linked, published, and shared my first Storylane demo in 10 min. Imagine what I can do in an hour or a week to bring my product to life.”

Going forward, People.ai will continue using Storylane demos across their website, email campaigns, and most avidly; Demo Hub, a centralized repository where prospects can explore multiple products in one place.