Business Catalyst: The Chemistry Between Designer and Client
February 25, 2016
Business Catalyst: The Chemistry Between Designer and Client
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Software Version
WebBasics
Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Business Catalyst
I currently use Adobe Business Catalyst in my personal business in multiple roles. As I develop web sites for clients I will upload test designs to BC for their test and approval. This workflow allows me to keep control of the design until it's finally approved. After it is approved I use BC as a resellable product to offer clients. Their analytic platform as well as their online editing capabilities make a great experience for my clients.
- Analytics: I am able to see on multiple levels traffic, clicks, and most importantly search terms for improving SEO. The reports are easy to generate as well as read, especially for small inexperienced business owners.
- Marketing: When using the BC platform businesses are able to link up easily with Adobe Marketing to automatically send out emails and newsletters. Its a very smooth and painless process.
- Online Editing: This is probably the best part of BC. Once a design is approved and launched on the platform, my clients do not have to contact me for small content updates. This frees me up as a small business owner to concentrate on design, new clients, and larger projects for existing clients.
- Multi Client Management: The dashboard for managing multiple clients as a reseller is a little difficult to get to. There is also no very easy way for me to manage multiple clients at once. I have to log into and out of individual client accounts to do billing or management.
- Lack of Server support: There are certain server protocols and languages that are not supported using BC. For example I cannot build a custom php database and upload to BC. I am required to use their tools.
- The biggest returns I have seen come from using BC as an individual product in my offerings. I see that it is also growing as a product and Adobe is growing it as a lead generation platform.
- The second biggest positive impact to my business comes from the time saved in development. My target demographic is small to medium sized businesses and BC is perfect for marketing to this demographic.
- My biggest complaint is that there is a lack of server side customization. When clients ask me if a certain type of website or application can be done I automatically know that I cannot put that site on the BC platform.
The largest competitor in my portfolio is GoDaddy. I tend to use them for larger products or for all inclusive domain registration and web presence. I prefer using BC for most everything due to its simplistic nature. It is a very streamlined product and is easy to add users from my clients as editors and managers. This makes content update and creation so much easier. It also eases the minds of content managers within my clients companies as they will have some control over what goes on the web site.
GoDaddy is my go to product for customized web designs, larger projects, and anything that requires server side software not supported by BC. It tends to be more involved and time consuming and less productive for me as a small business. So while I prefer to work with BC there are just some limitations that send me over to another hosting platform.
GoDaddy is my go to product for customized web designs, larger projects, and anything that requires server side software not supported by BC. It tends to be more involved and time consuming and less productive for me as a small business. So while I prefer to work with BC there are just some limitations that send me over to another hosting platform.
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) Feature Ratings
Using Adobe Business Catalyst
1 - I currently serve multiple roles when using BC. I am the owner, designer and developer for my clients. My clients are small to medium local businesses looking to expand their web presence with a professional site. We integrate with their current social media customer database as well as suggest new marketing campaigns.
1 - BC requires the same skill set needed for any type of web implementation. BC reaches into the analytics, report building, content development, content management, marketing distribution, marketing tracking, and custom database buidling. Other additional skills would be integration with other Adobe products such as Dreamweaver, Muse, Photoshop, Illustrator and flash.
- Full Website Implementation
- Marketing campaigns
- Online Editing
- When combined with Adobe Muse I can quickly create fully functional test mockups for clients within a few hours.
- As my organization grows I would like to either see Adobe expand Marketing Cloud or make BC compatible with lead generation or tracking.
Evaluating Adobe Business Catalyst and Competitors
- Price
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Vendor Reputation
The most important decision was the integration with other Adobe products. Publishing a website from within the design software saves a great deal of time with each product. This allows me to stay competitive with hourly rates as well as resell BC as a platform for my clients. Being able to quickly get into one piece of software and manage content or update design on the fly is a huge benefit.
We did not go through a selection process with this software. We began using it when Adobe moved to the subscription model. This changed a lot about how we did business and what we could offer our clients. BC started as an add on service but then quickly moved to an integral part of our overall business model.
Adobe Business Catalyst Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal - Change management was really not an issue as BC is truly integrated with Adobe software already being used. Any of the BC implementation outside existing Adobe software is easy to use and very intuitive. There was almost no stress involved in implementing this platform.
- The biggest issue was realizing that I was unable to use this platform exclusively. I still have clients that require technology not offered by the BC platform.
Adobe Business Catalyst Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Kept well informed No escalation required Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No - I rarely see premium support available with Adobe subscription products. Their standard support is usually better than most subscription support service offerings.
Using Adobe Business Catalyst
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | Do not like to use |
- Publishing to BC through Adobe Dreamweaver or Muse are the main reason I use the platform. This is done very well overall between the different software platforms.
- Integration with many of the widgets in Muse make the platform very usable for many different situations.
- PHP or MySQL implementations are impossible with BC. BC requires that you use their custom database software. This is great but has less customization opportunity.