Adobe Business Catalyst is a managed solution that allows you, the business owner, to stay in control. From editing webpages
to sending out email campaigns to customers, you interact when and how you want with your customers. Adobe Business Catalyst makes
it easy for you to decide what functionality you need for your business by allowing you to upgrade to increased functionality at anytime.
Only need a website that introduces the public to your business today, but in a few months decide you want to begin selling products?
No problem. my friend earth™ Design builds your website with the hosting and platform power of Adobe Business Catalyst. As your new
site is created, you will be able to follow along with it every step of the way on our live preview system...and if you already have
a website, my friend earth™ will create your new site without affecting your existing. You will see your newly designed website
in a live preview, in its full glory, before your website goes live. View a quick tour,
showcasing the powerful features of the Adobe Business Catalyst platform.
Have complex CMS systems been causing you headaches? Tired of keeping track of 5 or more logins for every tool used for your Online Business? Our one-stop approach to content management takes the hassle out of building, managing and hosting the first critical component of an Online Business - the website.
Selling goods and services is often an important part of an Online Business. With BC, we've got eCommerce capabilities built right into the platform, so that you can avoid the pain of having to call your designer every time you need to add a new product in your catalogue or change a price.
Many businesses struggle with cumbersome systems and too many emails. BC's simple CRM is built in and integrated with all of our web form, eCommerce, membership and content management features, enabling you to provide better service for your customers - all without extra coding or configuration services.
Email marketing is a powerful tool for you to reach your customers - and bring them back to your online business. With BC's simple CRM automatically building your customer database in the background, you can create lists and send newsletters with ease.
Every Online Business has different needs and goals. BC's range of flexible modules provide you with quick ways to implement usually complex business requirements, covering everything from basic content management to complex newsletter campaigns.
Business decisions should never be made blindly. That's why we've integrated powerful reporting functions into every aspect of your Online Business. From web pages to online shops, email marketing to lead management - BC records every interaction customers have with your site and gives you the tools to track them.
Business Catalyst gives you complete creative control over your design. Unleash your imagination and let you designer transform your ideas in your very own HTML & CSS code for every system feature.
Bring onboard your custom JavaScript or embed rich Flash content. With BC's range of powerful design and customization options, you can have a beautiful website, your way.
And easy to edit too with the inContext Editing feature.
View a showcase of websites built on Business Catalyst.
Contact Us for complete details about Adobe Business Catalyst Hosting.
There are several website content management system platforms on the market and thousands of companies that can build your business a website. Some of the top CMS platforms that your business might investigate in the search for updating or developing a website are Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla. We performed the same search. Only we actually installed and tested all the platforms ourselves to find the best website solution to provide our website clients. In 2010, we made the decision to become a Premier Partner with Adobe Business Catalyst and develop websites exclusively on Business Catalyst platform. The Adobe Business Catalyst platform's backbone utilizes Microsoft.net, HTML, customizable CSS and incorporates JavaScript frameworks and jQuery. But it is the functionality of many different components that make BC quite unique.
Here are 8 reasons why a Business Catalyst website is a great investment.
My short answer: who cares?
But this is a blog post, so I probably should give you the long answer. ;)
I know this is a topic that has come up a thousand times, and will come up a thousand more. Occasionally, it’s pretty informative and helpful for both sides, but often it’s heated, and quite biased one way or the other. Regardless, there’s no question which camp people belong to once they get talking.
Here’s a ‘no duh’ statement: people have a tendency to make future decisions based on past ones. That’s fine, and even logical. There is safety in assessing a past experience for merit or flaws, and acting accordingly. But sometimes we approach that tendency with more of a religious fervor. This can present itself in several ways. I brought up religion, so I’ll use it as the analogy for this article.
I’m religious. I served as a full-time missionary for my church for two years beginning shortly after high school. Now, when I say full-time, I mean full time. I didn’t have a job, girlfriend, social outings, college, or pizza. Wait...I actually had a lot of pizza. And sushi. I had a lot of sushi…
Anyway, I saw and interacted with a lot of different religious attitudes:
I’m sure you can tell which attitude I think most highly of. I’m not even suggesting they all converted (or that they didn’t ;). I just like them. Regardless of what we are doing in life, whether it be in religious service or education or work or family, we will go the farthest if we let go of attitudes that hamper our progress and hinder our vision.
The arguments between web platforms is often comparable to that of arguing sects of religion, so I decided to move along that vein. Following are four “religious” attitudes we exhibit, and how they affect the way we see Business Catalyst, and react to its competitors.
Well, what if you’re wrong? Truth is, regardless of which platform you are on, if you have this attitude, you aren’t doing them much of a favor. You aren’t moving the platform along. You aren’t learning or benefitting. And when the time comes that you decide to write a blog post about the platform, your lack of conviction in its genuine benefits or failings is going to make it fall flat.
Never digging in. Excited and happy at first, but jumping ship at the first sign of discomfort or imperfection. Jumps on a negative forum post and quickly agrees.
An example of this attitude can be seen in the partner who gets sold on Business Catalyst’s salespeak, but fails to take a deeper look at the true benefits of the platform. Later, when something changes, their world falls apart. All of a sudden, the argument they have made on forum posts and with their clients seems invalid. Open Platform, anyone? Haven’t we heard the argument that Adobe removed one of the key differentiators between Business Catalyst and WordPress when it introduced the concept of apps?
If anything, they helped us close the gap. Plugins aren’t bad. And they aren’t the end to security and consistency on BC. Business Catalyst is a proprietary platform that has opened its doors to 3rd party apps. Sound familiar? Apple did the same thing with iOS, and everybody said it would fail. They said open was the only way to succeed. The past several years have shown us that iOS has avoided many of the security and monetary pitfalls that Android has endured. In this case, WordPress is a good comparison to Android, with many of the same pros and cons. We can look at the comparison with these two successful mobile platforms, and see that both models work. But that kind of seeing requires a willingness to broaden our view, and a refusal to pigeonhole a platform’s benefits into one or two features.
In some people, this is born of a need to contend or win, but often it is fear-based. Deep down, afraid that we might be wrong, so we put up our defences.
There is a stronger natural tendency in ourselves towards this attitude than we might want to believe. Have you ever been so adamant about something that you emphatically stated it as fact, only to find out later that you were wrong? It’s embarrassing. It’s in those moments that we realize how imperfect our perspective is, and that another piece of the puzzle can completely dash our paradigm. When we seek to “defend” Business Catalyst through arguing our pros and their cons, we are most certainly setting ourselves up for embarrassment.
There are several examples of this, including forum bashing, blog sniping, and even listing out reasons to our clients as to why Business Catalyst is better than WordPress. When we bash another platform, we show fear and ignorance. On the other hand, if you are confident in Business Catalyst’s ability to help your client, you will probably have so much positive to say that you won’t have the time or need to mention the others. Better yet, you will look past the platform itself, and simply talk about fulfilling your client’s needs.
On that note, we really should stop selling on the differences between the platforms. In fact, we should stop “selling the platform” altogether. Do you really think it will make or break your client if they are on one platform or the other? If you’re selling the platform, you are selling nothing at all. Sell solutions.
The final attitude finds the good in everything. When we have an open mind, we are not focused on Business Catalyst or WordPress, but on benefits and helping things move forward. We see the advantages that are presented to us, and focus on those. Open-minded partners recognize that WordPress does good too, and has its place in the market.
Speaking of market, WordPress and Business Catalyst have different market segments. There’s certainly overlap, but WordPress (for full sites not blogs) reaches a lower dollar value client with less experience in business. But this is only partly because of features. A lot of it has to do with community culture. Attitude, skill, and innovation of a developer/designer community are more important in determining viability of a platform for a particular client than the platform itself. WordPress is WordPress because its community largely wants it that way. Over time, they have molded the platform into the way they want it, reaching the customers they want to reach, and they will continue doing so because the platform is determined by its members. A platform is the sum of its community, not its parts.
With an open mind, we can stop the fight and focus on what matters: bettering the platform for the clients we want on it. We can look at WordPress and see innovations that inspire us. We can learn from Shopify and build a better e-commerce system in Business Catalyst.
It’s culture, not competition that sets customer expectations, drives price/value perception, and determines the types of innovation we experience. What culture do I want to see in the BC community? I want to see tailored solutions, skilled delivery, higher prices, and successful clients.
The future of Business Catalyst is not about feature comparison. It’s about you.
Adobe Business Catalyst comparison video shows you how Business Catalyst is different from Wordpress.
*my friend earth™ Design is not endorsed by any of the above mentioned companies
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