Solving business needs with Adobe InContext Editing

A common challenge web designers encounter is managing content updates of past projects for clients, while simultaneously working on new projects. It's easy to get bogged down making small, ad hoc edits while working on a new site that's getting close to its deadline. To make matters worse, a lot of designers don't have billing set up for incremental changes, or don't have recurring maintenance agreements. So not only are designers being distracted from focusing on larger projects, but they're also spending time on unprofitable work.

Adobe InContext Editing is a new online service designed to remedy this situation by letting your clients make their own simple web updates, while maintaining website design integrity. The service is available today as a free preview. This article focuses on the following topics:

• Save time and money by enabling clients to make their own edits
• Add more value and potentially increase your profits
• Create new business from old, by re-engaging your past clients

Save time and money by enabling clients to make their own updates

Web designers have told us site maintenance and content updates take too much of their time. They would rather spend time working on new projects, which satisfies their creative need and is ultimately more profitable. Those who have enabled their clients to make their own edits or updates have run into problems like having their designs compromised, providing training and support, and paying for software or licensing.

Clients face their own challenges trying to keep their sites up-to-date, such as relying on their designer to make changes for them. The situation worsens when urgent updates are needed, such as correcting a pricing typo. We've all heard the stories of being woken up in the middle night with a frantic client who needs an immediate change, or the client who can't get a hold of their designer no matter how hard they try. Also, many clients aren't tech savvy and are intimidated by web editing software. This is especially true for designers who create sites for small independent businesses.

InContext Editing solves these problems by:

• Letting you define what parts of a client's static pages can be edited, and enabling control over the level of edits, such as limiting font styles (it only takes minutes with Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 to do so).
• Eliminating the need for clients to install software, since edits are made directly within the page itself, from just about any browser
• Dramatically reducing the need for training, using a common word processor-type interface for edits

When implementing InContext Editing, you are designated as the Web Developer, and can invite your customers to edit their own pages. Only users who have been invited are allowed to make changes. They can be designated as either Editors or Publishers, to control who can make edits or publish them. For example, an employee of a restaurant (Editor) can make a change to the business' online menu, but only the owner (Publisher) would be allowed to make the change live.

Add more value and potentially increase your profits

InContext Editing can help your business by adding more value to your past, present, or future solution offerings. By letting your clients make their own content edits, they gain multiple benefits, including:

• The ability to make updates as often as they'd like
• Removing the bottleneck of waiting for you to make edits for them
• Peace of mind, knowing that updates can't ruin the look of their pages

The key is to emphasize these benefits to your clients when discussing projects with them, as additional selling points that add tangible value.

InContext Editing will be free until early 2011, when Adobe will package it with Adobe BrowserLab (a new cross-browser testing service) for about US$20 a month. To offset the eventual subscription fees, you could pass the costs to your clients. Although it's completely up to you, here are scenarios where you could add charges for InContext Editing:

• The initial cost of a new project
• Recurring hosting fees (if you manage or arrange hosting for your clients)
• Recurring maintenance fees

We have often heard that charging customers for updates or edits is challenging. Some designers charge hourly rates, some have a recurring maintenance fee, whereas others make changes for free out of good will. Then there are minor changes that aren't substantial enough to charge for, yet are distracting and interrupting workflows. The suggestions above provide easy ways to absorb the future cost of InContext Editing.

The monthly subscription cost of roughly $20 is regardless of how many sites you use InContext Editing with. If you enable InContext Editing for multiple clients, this presents a greater opportunity to absorb its cost. More importantly you could turn a profit, which can be significant depending on how much you charge and how many clients you have.

Keep in mind that InContext Editing will be free until 2011. Not only does this you time to try the service at no cost to you, but you could sell its benefits to your clients without paying anything, thus adding to your bottom line.

Create new business from old, by re-engaging your past clients

So far most of this article has covered how InContext Editing could be used for current and future projects. InContext Editing provides a terrific way to reconnect with past clients. Say you've built a site for a client that hasn't been updated since it launched. You could easily add editable regions to their existing pages, giving them the capability to revitalize their stagnant sites. Imagine this conversation: "Hey Carol, this is Phil from Wonky Web Works, remember me? I have some great news about that site I built for you; I noticed it could use some updating, and I've got the perfect tool for you…"

Of course, the primary goal here is not to update old sites, but it's a way to re-engage past clients. Talking about or implementing InContext Editing could be the lead-in to new projects they may be interested in, or to talk about new solutions you may be offering. It's easy to lose contact as time passes and new clients come aboard.

To help showcase the value of InContext Editing, building a demo site is a terrific way to show clients what they could do. You could even make parts of your own site editable, to show how InContext Editing is used in a production capacity. It only takes minutes to make a page editable, whether it already exists or you're starting from scratch.

Every business should have a customer retention strategy, no matter the size. It doesn't matter if it's a follow up call, sending a personalized email, writing a regular e-newsletter, or even sending a postcard; the key is to stay top of mind with your clients. Perhaps you could even increase your marketing efforts with the time you save with InContext Editing. We all know it's harder to attain new clients than retain existing ones, so making sure your solutions and offerings are considered is critical.

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