Send the email within two hours of the demo, write it so the person you met can forward it unchanged to the people who were not on the call, and end with one dated next step. That is the whole job. The demo itself is over; what decides the deal is whether your recap survives a trip through the buyer's company without you in the room.
A demo follow-up usually fails for one reason: they are written to the person who watched, when they will be read by the person who did not. The operations manager saw forty minutes of the product. The owner, the finance lead or the IT person saw nothing, and gets a forwarded message with a subject line like "Thanks for your time!" That message cannot answer their questions. Below are three templates built around that fact, then what to attach, subject lines, and when to phone.
The demo in this example
Dana Reyes sells route-scheduling software, called Tallyfield here, to landscaping companies. She just ran a 35-minute demo for Wes Okonkwo, who runs operations at Greenline Lawn and Garden, a 14-truck company in Tulsa. Wes said three things: crews lose about an hour a day to bad routing, the owner (Priya) approves every new subscription and wants a sit-down meeting for anything over $200 a month, and he is nervous about re-entering 600 customer addresses. Every email is Dana writing to Wes. Tallyfield, Greenline and the people are made up.
When to send each one: two hours, day three, day seven
Send Template 1 the same afternoon. By the next morning Wes has had a dozen other interruptions and your demo is a blur. Send Template 2 on day three if he raised a worry you did not fully answer, and skip it if he did not. If nothing has come back by day six or seven, send Template 3, then phone a day or two later. Three short emails and one call are enough for the stage after a demo, because the buyer already showed interest by turning up. What he usually lacks now is a reason to act this week, and each email below gives him one.
Template 1: the forwardable recap
Use it: within two hours, always. Why it works: it repeats the buyer's own numbers back, so when Wes forwards it to Priya, she reads her own company's problem in the first lines before she reads a word about software.
Subject: Greenline routing: what we covered and what it would cost
Hi Wes,
Thanks for the time today. Here is the short version you can pass to Priya.
What you told me: crews lose about an hour a day to routing, on each of 14 trucks. That is 14 truck-hours lost every working day, with a paid crew sitting in each truck, and it is the problem to fix.
What Tallyfield does about it: builds each morning's routes from your customer list, and reroutes when a stop is cancelled. You saw the reroute on the map.
Cost: $189 a month for 14 trucks, no contract, cancel any month. That is under the $200 line, so Priya can approve it by email without a meeting.
Your concern: re-entering 600 addresses. You do not have to. Send me the spreadsheet and I will import it myself, usually the same day.
Next step: if I get the spreadsheet by Friday, I can have your first week of routes ready for you to look at on Monday. Want me to set that up?
Dana
What to notice: it names the buyer's own number, states the price in plain dollars, answers the one worry he raised, and ends on a next step with a date inside it. There is no "please let me know if you have any questions", because that sentence gives the reader nothing to do.
Template 2: the objection you heard and did not fully answer
Use it: on day three, when Wes raised something during the demo and your answer in the room was thin. Why it works: buyers rarely repeat an objection by email. They just stop replying. If you bring it up first, with something concrete, you show you were listening and you remove the thing that was holding him back.
Subject: Your question about crew leads and the phone app
Hi Wes,
You asked on Tuesday whether older crew leads would actually use the phone app. I gave you a quick answer. Here is a better one.
The crew view is one screen: today's stops in order, a button for arrived and one for done. There is no login after the first day. I recorded a 90 second walkthrough on a phone, so you can see what a crew lead sees: [link].
If you want to test it with one truck for a week before deciding, that is fine. I would set it up for the truck you pick. Which crew would be the toughest test?
Dana
The closing question is deliberate. Asking which crew is "the toughest test" invites him to design the trial, and someone who is designing a trial has already half decided to run one.
Template 3: the buyer who has gone silent
Use it: on day six or seven if nothing you have sent drew a reply, and before you phone. Why it works: it gives permission to say no, which is often the only way to get any answer at all.
Subject: Should I close this out, Wes?
Hi Wes,
I have not heard back since the demo, which usually means one of three things: the timing is wrong, the price or scope is not right, or someone else on your side has a concern I have not heard.
Any of those is a fair answer. If you tell me which, I will either fix it or stop emailing. If I do not hear from you by next Thursday, I will assume the timing is wrong and check back in December, when your season slows.
Dana
It names a date and a reason for the later check-in, so it does not read as a threat. It is also easier to answer than a fourth "just checking in", because each of the three reasons fits in one line.
What to attach to a demo follow-up
Attach or link three things at most: the price in writing, a short recording or screenshots of what was shown, and, if the buyer mentioned a security or data question, your one-page answer to it. Leave out the full slide deck. A 40-slide deck tells the forwarded reader to open a file instead of reading your email, and most will not. If the buyer asked to send something to their finance person, attach the quote as its own document so it makes sense alone. Our page on following up on a quote covers the stage after you send price, and the sales proposal template is the right attachment when the deal is bigger than a monthly subscription.
Demo follow-up subject lines that get opened
Name the buyer's company and the problem, not the meeting. These work because they say something specific about the reader.
- Greenline routing: what we covered and what it would cost
- Your question about crew leads and the phone app
- Importing your 600 customers: how it works
- Should I close this out, Wes?
Avoid "Thank you for your time", "Following up", and "Checking in". They say nothing and are the subject lines people expect to ignore. For more options, see our list of follow-up email subject lines.
When to call instead of writing
Call when the demo went well and the buyer is quiet: a day or two after Template 3, or sooner if a deadline is near, such as a start date he mentioned. Say who you are, what you sent, and ask a yes or no question: "Did Priya get a chance to look at the price?" If you get voicemail, follow our voicemail follow-up advice and send a short email within the hour. Call also when the demo included more than one buyer and only one of them has replied. A quick call to the other person, with the first person's blessing, can save a week.
Log what was said in the demo, not just that it happened
Write down the buyer's numbers, his worries, and who else signs, the same day. Those notes are the raw material for Template 1, and they are what you read before the call. A demo with no notes produces a generic email, and a generic email produces silence. If you find your own demos tend to go well and then stall, the piece on why a great demo can lose the deal is worth reading.
Rocketship takes care of the part before the demo: finding the companies, reading their websites, emailing the right people from your own Gmail and booking the meeting on your calendar. That leaves your hours for the demo itself and the recap after it, the two steps where the buyer needs to hear from you. You can see how it works with a 7-day trial, or compare plans on the pricing page.