Leave-Behind Materials

Master this essential documentation concept

Quick Definition

Leave-Behind Materials are professionally crafted documentation assets provided to prospects or customers after meetings, presentations, or product demos to reinforce key information and maintain engagement. These materials summarize essential product features, benefits, and next steps while serving as tangible references that recipients can review, share with stakeholders, and use to make informed decisions.

How Leave-Behind Materials Works

flowchart TD A[Documentation Repository] --> B{Content Selection} B --> C[Technical Content] B --> D[User-Focused Content] B --> E[Visual Assets] C & D & E --> F[Content Adaptation] F --> G[Audience-Specific Formatting] G --> H{Format Selection} H --> I[PDF Documents] H --> J[Interactive Guides] H --> K[Quick Reference Cards] H --> L[Video Tutorials] I & J & K & L --> M[Distribution After Meeting] M --> N[Customer Review] N --> O[Follow-up Questions] N --> P[Internal Sharing] N --> Q[Decision Making] O --> R[Documentation Team Support] P & Q --> S[Sales Conversion] S --> T[Feedback Loop] T --> A

Understanding Leave-Behind Materials

Leave-Behind Materials are strategic documentation assets designed to extend the impact of customer interactions beyond the initial meeting or demonstration. These professionally designed resources serve as tangible reminders of your product or service value proposition, helping to bridge the gap between the initial engagement and the customer's decision-making process.

Key Features

  • Concise summaries of product capabilities, benefits, and differentiators
  • Customized content tailored to specific customer pain points and use cases
  • Visual elements including diagrams, screenshots, and infographics
  • Clear next steps to guide prospects through the decision process
  • Contact information for follow-up questions or support
  • Branded design that reinforces company identity and professionalism

Benefits for Documentation Teams

  • Repurpose existing content from technical documentation into customer-facing materials
  • Establish content consistency across technical and marketing materials
  • Showcase documentation expertise through well-structured, clear explanations
  • Gather feedback on how technical information is received by different audiences
  • Collaborate cross-functionally with sales and marketing teams
  • Track content effectiveness through sales conversion metrics

Common Misconceptions

  • They're just marketing brochures - Leave-behinds should provide substantive, actionable information, not just promotional content
  • One size fits all - Effective leave-behinds are customized to address specific customer needs and contexts
  • More information is better - Overwhelming prospects with excessive technical details can reduce effectiveness
  • Digital versions are sufficient - Physical materials often have higher retention value in appropriate contexts
  • Creation is a one-time effort - Leave-behinds require regular updates to reflect product changes and customer feedback

Transforming Demo Videos into Effective Leave-Behind Materials

When conducting product demos, your team likely captures valuable information that prospects need to reference later. These leave-behind materials are critical for reinforcing key points after your presentation ends, but creating them often becomes a separate, time-consuming task.

While recording demo videos provides an authentic representation of your product in action, video-only leave-behind materials present challenges. Prospects can't easily scan for specific information, search for features they're most interested in, or quickly share relevant sections with decision-makers. This friction can slow down the sales cycle and diminish the impact of your demonstrations.

Converting your demo videos into structured documentation creates more effective leave-behind materials that serve multiple purposes. By extracting key information from recordings, you can develop comprehensive user manuals that highlight product capabilities, address common questions, and provide step-by-step instructions. These documentation-based leave-behind materials remain valuable throughout the customer journey—from evaluation to implementation and ongoing use.

Technical teams that implement automated video-to-documentation workflows can maintain consistency between demos and leave-behind materials without doubling their workload. This approach ensures prospects receive accurate information while significantly reducing the time your team spends creating separate assets.

Discover how to streamline the creation of documentation-based leave-behind materials from your demo videos →

Real-World Documentation Use Cases

Post-Demo Technical Summary

Problem

After product demonstrations, prospects often forget specific technical details that would help them evaluate the solution against their requirements.

Solution

Create a concise technical summary document that highlights key product capabilities demonstrated during the meeting, with emphasis on the features most relevant to the prospect's needs.

Implementation

1. Collaborate with sales to identify key technical points covered in demos. 2. Extract relevant content from existing technical documentation. 3. Adapt the language for the prospect's technical level. 4. Include diagrams illustrating workflow or architecture. 5. Add contextual examples specific to the prospect's industry. 6. Include a glossary of key technical terms. 7. Provide links to more detailed documentation resources.

Expected Outcome

Prospects can review technical details at their own pace, share specific information with technical stakeholders, and make more informed decisions based on accurate technical understanding. Sales teams report 30% fewer follow-up questions about technical capabilities.

Implementation Roadmap Guide

Problem

Prospects often struggle to envision the implementation process, timeline, and resource requirements when considering complex products.

Solution

Develop a customizable implementation roadmap document that outlines the typical deployment process, required resources, and timeline expectations.

Implementation

1. Work with implementation specialists to document the standard deployment process. 2. Create a visual timeline with major milestones and dependencies. 3. Develop a checklist of customer prerequisites and responsibilities. 4. Include case studies with relevant implementation metrics. 5. Add a resource planning guide with typical role requirements. 6. Provide templates for implementation planning documents. 7. Include a section on common challenges and solutions.

Expected Outcome

Prospects gain confidence in the implementation process, can better plan internal resources, and have realistic timeline expectations. Implementation teams report better prepared customers and fewer surprises during actual deployments.

Executive Summary for Stakeholders

Problem

Primary contacts often struggle to effectively communicate product value to executive decision-makers who weren't present at the original demonstration.

Solution

Create an executive-focused summary that emphasizes business value, ROI, and strategic benefits rather than technical features.

Implementation

1. Extract key business benefits from existing value proposition documentation. 2. Develop concise ROI calculations or case studies relevant to the prospect's industry. 3. Create visual representations of business impact metrics. 4. Include brief testimonials from similar organizations. 5. Summarize competitive advantages in a simple comparison matrix. 6. Add a high-level implementation timeline and resource requirements. 7. Include clear next steps for the decision process.

Expected Outcome

Primary contacts can more effectively advocate for the solution internally, executive stakeholders can quickly grasp the business value, and the sales cycle accelerates through more efficient internal decision processes.

Integration Capability Guide

Problem

Technical stakeholders need detailed information about integration capabilities to assess compatibility with existing systems after initial meetings.

Solution

Develop a specialized leave-behind document focusing specifically on integration methods, API capabilities, and compatibility with common systems.

Implementation

1. Compile integration specifications from technical documentation. 2. Create visual diagrams of integration architecture options. 3. Include code samples for common integration scenarios. 4. Develop a compatibility matrix for popular third-party systems. 5. Add case studies highlighting successful integrations in similar environments. 6. Provide links to API documentation and developer resources. 7. Include contact information for technical pre-sales support.

Expected Outcome

Technical evaluators can thoroughly assess integration feasibility, development teams can estimate integration effort more accurately, and technical objections are addressed proactively, reducing technical evaluation time by up to 40%.

Best Practices

âś“ Tailor Content to the Specific Audience

Customize leave-behind materials to address the specific needs, pain points, and technical level of each prospect rather than using generic materials.

âś“ Do: Create modular content components that can be assembled based on prospect profiles, industry, and specific interests expressed during meetings. Include relevant case studies from the prospect's industry and address specific challenges they mentioned.
âś— Don't: Don't distribute the same generic brochure to every prospect regardless of their unique situation. Avoid using technical jargon inappropriate for the audience's expertise level.

âś“ Balance Depth with Accessibility

Strike the right balance between providing comprehensive information and maintaining readability for various stakeholders.

âś“ Do: Use a layered approach with executive summaries followed by progressively more detailed information. Employ visual elements like diagrams, charts, and callout boxes to make complex information more digestible. Include clear section headers and a table of contents for easy navigation.
âś— Don't: Don't overwhelm readers with dense technical specifications without context. Avoid creating documents so lengthy that key decision-makers won't read them. Don't bury critical information deep within the document.

âś“ Incorporate Clear Next Steps

Include specific guidance on what actions the prospect should take after reviewing the materials to move the relationship forward.

âś“ Do: Outline a clear decision path with timeframes, required actions, and contact information. Create checklists for implementation preparation if appropriate. Include calendar links for scheduling follow-up discussions or demonstrations.
âś— Don't: Don't end materials abruptly without direction. Avoid vague calls to action like 'contact us for more information' without specific contacts or methods. Don't create uncertainty about the next stages in the process.

âś“ Maintain Visual and Brand Consistency

Ensure leave-behind materials reflect professional design standards and consistent branding to reinforce credibility and recognition.

âś“ Do: Develop and follow a style guide specific to leave-behind materials. Use consistent formatting, typography, color schemes, and visual elements across all documents. Ensure all diagrams and screenshots are current and high-quality.
âś— Don't: Don't mix different design styles within the same document set. Avoid using outdated logos or screenshots showing previous versions of the product. Don't sacrifice readability for design elements.

âś“ Establish Feedback and Iteration Processes

Create systems to gather feedback on the effectiveness of leave-behind materials and continuously improve them based on real-world performance.

âś“ Do: Follow up with sales teams to determine which materials are most effective. Track which sections prospects reference most frequently in follow-up discussions. Create a regular review cycle to update materials based on product changes and feedback.
âś— Don't: Don't assume materials are effective without verification. Avoid letting materials become outdated as products evolve. Don't ignore feedback from sales teams about prospect reactions to specific content.

How Docsie Helps with Leave-Behind Materials

Modern documentation platforms significantly enhance the creation, management, and effectiveness of leave-behind materials through streamlined workflows and powerful content reuse capabilities.

  • Content reusability: Leverage existing technical documentation as the foundation for leave-behind materials, ensuring consistency while reducing duplication effort
  • Dynamic personalization: Create customized leave-behind documents by dynamically assembling content components based on prospect profiles and specific interests
  • Multi-format publishing: Generate appropriately formatted outputs for different contexts—interactive PDFs, microsite access, print-optimized documents—all from a single content source
  • Version control: Ensure sales teams always distribute the most current information, with automatic updates when underlying product details change
  • Usage analytics: Track which sections of digital leave-behinds receive the most attention, enabling data-driven content optimization
  • Collaboration tools: Enable seamless cooperation between technical writers, subject matter experts, and sales teams when developing customer-facing materials
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