Chicago Digital Blog The Adobe Business Catalyst Eco-System

When we first discovered Adobe Business Catalyst back in 2009, they had a slogan on their site that really sold me on the platform. It went something like this: "Websites are dead, build online businesses instead".At first, it may seem like an odd strategy, to convince people that websites are dead. However, the way BC looked at it was that it wasn't enough to just have a website, to truly be successful online you need to figure out how to get visitors to your site, convert visitors to leads, nurture the leads into customers, and then turn those customers into repeat customers. They had this insight in 2004 and oh how they were they right.For a small business owner, building an online business sounds really hard.... and expensive, how many different systems are needed in order to pull that off? Well, one, at least that was Business Catalyst's argument when they built the platform.Business Catalyst has a lot of components to it: a Content Management System, Email Hosting, Email Marketing, CRM, Ecommerce, Blogging, Reports, Customer Support Ticketing and more. It is all integrated together in one platform that is simple, yet powerful for developers and easy for small business owners to manage their website. Even for the components that Business Catalyst does not have built in, it is very friendly for running various marketing campaigns to drive more traffic and business to the website such as Social Media, SEO, Local Listings and PPC advertisements.While not all encompassing, the following overview is a visual representation of the various components of an online business and how they fit together with Business Catalyst.In full transparency, I am using a visual we put together a few years ago, but I wanted to share because it is still relevant today. To better clarify the diagram above, Mobile and Support should be inside of the BC Eco-system.Business Catalyst enables you top have full control over the front-end code, which means that there are no limits to the amazing responsive experiences you can create on Business Catalyst. Said another way, with Business Catalyst, developers can create fantastic experiences for Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile devices.While I wouldn't say Business Catalyst is everything you need to build an online business, it does package up most of the core components a small to medium business needs. The rest can be integrated, thanks to Business Catalyst securely opening up the platform in recent years through APIs.