For many business owners, the foray into e-commerce feels like a dive into a vast sea of ambiguity. Even established companies have to develop new means of getting noticed and attracting customers when they venture into the online market. But just because your expertise is not in the field of internet marketing doesn’t mean you can’t build a prosperous online business.

A lot of online business owners have in depth knowledge about their product offering and industry, but know little about how to use this expertise to their advantage online. Here are some techniques to help you leverage your own expertise to the benefit of your online business.

Make your Site the Premiere Resource for Information about your Industry and Products

Business is about relationships, and relationships rely on each party understanding what the other is about. You have to understand your potential customers in order to give them the right information, and consumers have to understand what your business is about before they will purchase from you.

You know all about your products and their benefits, but how will you convince visitors that your site is the perfect place to purchase them? You can start by providing a plethora of valuable information so that they can research and purchase from the same place - your website. Establishing your site as the premiere destination for resources about your industry enhances the user experience and builds trust, an important foundation for making sales.

In addition to providing informative, relevant and grammatically perfect content on the main pages of your website, an excellent way to position your site as a premiere destination in your line of business is through a regularly updated blog hosted on your server. A corporate blog, used effectively, enables visitors to research your products and industry without leaving your site, and demonstrates your company’s expertise and commitment. Here are a few more ways a corporate blog will help your online business:

• Regularly updated content relevant to your industry can help your site attract traffic through natural search. Frequent updates of related content will increase the chance that pages of your site will appear in search engine results when potential customers search for terms related to your products.

• Valuable content on your blog can also help you attract links from related sites, which can send you direct traffic and help your pages rank better in search engine results.

• Enabling comments on your blog provides an interactive environment in which you can reach out to targeted customers who are already interested in your products. For best results, garner relationships by personally responding to comments, and take advantage of the opportunity to connect directly with potential customers.

In communicating your expertise through your website content, blog posts and product descriptions, be sure to maintain focus on the benefits your customers are seeking. Instead of starting every sentence with “we,” speak to and about the customer.

Consistency is key to this approach. Establishing your site as a valuable resource is not going to happen overnight, but with regular effort toward building a content-rich, high quality website, you can earn the trust and loyalty of your customer base without having to convince them of anything. Tad Chef wrote an excellent list of 50 Blog Post Ideas for Business Blogging that will certainly get you started, and keep you busy for a while too. (See? It works. He wrote a great post that earned links and more readers :D)

Use your Knowledge to Merge the Physical and Virtual Worlds

There are lots of ways to reach out to consumers online, but marketing your online business does not have to be limited to the virtual world. Branding offline can certainly impact your online sales, so put your industry expertise to use getting the word out about your site in the places your target market hangs out offline. Here are some site promotion ideas that require no technical knowledge to accomplish:

• Attend industry trade shows, conferences or seminars as a guest or a speaker. Use the opportunity to build your credibility, network, find new leads and research ways you can improve your business. Just as establishing your site as a resource carries numerous benefits, earning an esteemed reputation within your industry will improve awareness and the credibility of your business. Bring the benefits back to your website by blogging about your experience. You can also kick it up a notch by supplementing your blog posts with audio or video of the event.

• Sponsor or advertise at events related to your industry. If your target market is comprised of runners, you might get the word out by sponsoring at a local marathon or 5K race. If your target market is primarily music enthusiasts, give away merchandise or sponsor a contest at a local music venue or festival. Hosting drawings or contests that require visiting your website can be a good way to attract new visitors. Get creative about promoting your site to the right people online and off, and you will be well on your way to building a strong brand that will have a long term impact on your bottom line.

Achieving success in any business - online or not - tends to fall back on a popular marketing mantra: Know Thy Customer. As an expert in your industry, you are uniquely suited to understanding what needs drive consumers to purchase your products, so you can tailor your marketing messages to speak to those needs in the context appropriate for your market. If you need help defining your target market, check out Choosing a Target Audience that will be Profitable to your Business.

-Pam Westbrook, Ecommerce Marketing/Copywriting

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The US Department of Justice warns against the type of Internet fraud that results when an unsuspecting customer goes online to purchase goods or services and their credit card information is misused or stolen. However, another surprisingly common form of fraud results when an unscrupulous card holder goes online and defrauds a business. Most often this type of fraud takes on one of two profiles. In scenario number one, an individual will go onto a site and order something fairly inexpensive in order to test a credit card to see if the information they have stolen is correct. By going online they do not have to face a company representative if it declines and they are unable to complete the purchase, and more importantly they can try the charge over and over. The second scenario is when an individual goes online to a site and makes a large purchase, provides a valid shipping address, and once the merchandise is delivered they disappear and resell it to make a profit.

While both types of fraud are bad for a company’s bottom line, the larger purchases can be especially harmful, as many merchant account providers (credit card processors) have steep penalties for transactions returned as fraudulent. On top of those fees there is also the added loss of the inventory that is shipped to the fraudulent purchaser.

Do Not Sacrifice Thoroughness For Speed

While it makes it faster and easier to do business by charging customers as they place orders on your site, it can open you up to unwanted risk. If a fraudulent order comes in and the customer is charged immediately by the time you login to view the order, you will have to retroactively fix the situation by issuing a credit and canceling the order. Therefore, it is a much better system to have your transactions merely authorize when the order comes in and then manually review them before you proceed any further. This way if the order appears to be fraudulent you can follow-up and if need be cancel the order at the authorization stage; which will only cost you a few cents in authorization fees rather than a percentage of the entire transaction when it is charged and that same percentage again when it is credited back
Configuring Payment Processing

Check for Legitimacy

When you are looking at an order some important things to note are the following:
-Do the billing and shipping addresses make sense? If the billing address is domestic and the shipping address is outside of the US that order is questionable. Even if an order has two different addresses domestically, you may want to verify the order.

-Where is the IP address from? If the billing and shipping addresses match or are similar (say they are both in New York) but the IP address that the order was placed from is elsewhere (say Tennessee) the order might be suspicious.

-Has the customer placed orders before? If they are a loyal customer obviously there is nothing to worry about but if they have placed several orders that never went through you probably will not want to process that order either.
Blocking Users

-Does the email address look legitimate? If the email address looks like one that is completely made up (say myemailaddress@yahoo.com) or if it is distinctly different from the information on the order (say the order is under James Smith and the email listed is susanparker@yahoo.com) you may want to call the credit card holder to verify.

Let Your Provider Minimize Your Risk

Some providers are not PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant and only about 550 nationally are CISP (Cardholder Information Security Program) certified. If you are not using a compliant solution you can potentially face lawsuits and crippling fines.

Using a PCI compliant/CISP certified provider is not just a way to protect you; it is also a way to promote your business. Because of the restrictions on credit card data that we have in place, your customers can be assured that you will not be abusing or misusing their information.

Verify Personally

One of the best ways to make sure that orders are legitimate is to give customers a call or email them. This allows you to verify order information and also provide a strong sense of customer service. When calling to verify order details to prevent against fraud you can also use the opportunity to confirm product options, quantity, shipping preferences, etc. This can definitely boost the customer’s view of your legitimacy as a business and your care for the company’s products and their individual order.

Issuing Credits

If you need to issue a credit be sure not to over-issue the credit amount as it can be difficult to recapture the discrepancy in funds afterward. If you have any questions it is best to contact your provider and have them send you instructions or walk you through it.

If you accidentally do process a fraudulent transaction (i.e. authorize and then capture) it is always best to credit back the funds rather than wait for the charge back to come to you. The truth is that most credit card companies tend to side with their cardholders over a business when there is a dispute. Unless you have overwhelming evidence (like a signature proving that a customer did receive the product, etc.) you will likely lose a charge dispute. When the dispute is lost the funds will be taken back from you and you will be assessed various charge back fees.

-Kate Pierce, Ecommerce Specialist

More information on setting up a merchant account

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