How can you facilitate demos for your themes & plugins to your customers?
With InstaWP, you can give your customers a completely functional WordPress site that is pre-configured with your theme or plugin, allowing them to test its features, customization possibilities, and performance in real-time.
In this guide, we will explore how to set up a product demo using InstaWP.
Let’s get started 🚀
Step 1 - Create a New Site
Create a new site that serves as the foundation for your product demo. Refer to Create site document for more information.
Sign in to your InstaWP account and click on the Add New button from the Sites page.
A new modal window will appear, providing you with options like From Scratch, From Snapshot, From Store, and From AI. Also, you'll find options to choose WordPress Version, PHP Version, Server Location, and Site Name. Fill out the options according to your preferences. Then, click Next Step.
Select themes or plugins based on your preferences from the available categories and click Next Step.
Choose a plan for your site and click Create Site.
This will create your site alongside with website URL and login credentials.
Step 2 - Setting up the Product Demo
Once the site is created, you can easily prepare your product demo by installing your plugin/theme with a customized landing page or adding engaging demo content. Refer to the Edit staging site document for more information.
Click on your site to open its dashboard. In the site menu, expand Extensions and select Install Plugin/Themes, then enter the plugin or theme slug to install your tool. Then click Install Plugin or Install Themes. You can also enter the .zip URL of the plugin or theme to install it.
Step 3 - Save your Site as a Shared Snapshot
Once the site is all set up, you need to save it as a shared snapshot, which will allow your potential customers to create more identical sites from it. Refer to the Create shared Snapshot document for more information.
From the Sites page, click the ... (More Actions) menu of your site and select Save Template/Snapshot. A modal window will appear.
Enter snapshot name and provide some description. Select Snapshot and the snapshot type as Shared. Optinally can toggle the Instant Snapshot option to improve its load speed and click Save. This will create a shared snapshot of your site.
Step 4 - Customize Snapshot
After saving the site as a shared snapshot, you can customize the look and feel of your snapshot landing page from the following options:
Snapshot Stats
Edit your shared snapshot setup and add a gallery that will be displayed on your shared snapshot, allowing visitors to see multiple images about your website at once. Refer to the Edit setup and Branding document for more information.
Click on the Edit button of your snapshot from the Snapshots page.
Here, you can edit your snapshot's general options such as name, description or add a post creation commands.
Select the Gallery option from the list to upload an image from local computer. Once uploaded, you can preview it, too.
Sharing Options
Personalize your snapshot by including a logo, gallery, or custom CSS to help customers learn more about your website's brand, identity, and how your brand should be represented. Refer to the Branding and Sharing options document for more information.
Select Branding option to open the branding page. Here you can configure branding options such as Logo, Customize Email, Customize Privacy Policy, Custom CSS, Custom color etc. Once done configuring, click Save.
Select Email Collection to open email collection. Here you can configure collect email, set WP Admin Email etc.
Select Security to open the Security page. Here, you can configure Disallow File Modifications, Randomize WP Admin Password, Redirect Non-whitelisted users etc. Once done configuring, click Save.
Select Integrations to open Integrations page. Here you can configure Webhook URL, Connect Email Provider etc. Once done configuring, click Save.
Select Advanced Options to open Advanced Options page. Here, you can configure Site Lifetime, Enable Site Cloning, Auto Login to wp-admin, Redirect URL etc. Once done configuring, click Save.
Click the Preview button to preview your shared snapshot. It'll show preview on instantly.
Related Articles
- InstaDemos (for Plugin/Theme Companies) - Set up product demos
- Create a Shared Snapshot - Share a snapshot as a demo
- How to keep your product demos updated - Keep demos current
- Set an expiry time for demo sites - Auto-expire demos