I have been involved in building and implementing systems - both SaaS based products, custom services. I have seen that it pays to smoothen the process of on-boarding by offering controlled and curated access to potential customers. Seed the environment with contextual data and help the visitors get the aha moment early on. Simple examples - if it is an LMS (Learning Management System) that you are offering, load a course with some videos, quizzes etc and let the user try it out both as a teacher and as a student and show the interactions involved. This strategy is more likely to help the potential customers understand the features and also makes the experience memorable.