So how does a company compete in this type of business environment?

It seems that Capital One has come up with an answer. With its newest interactive site, Card Lab, customers can now completely build and customize their credit cards online. Forget old bank brochures and online matrices that push offerings to you, this new concept allows customers to tell Capital One what credit lines, options, and designs they want for their cards…a concept that truly allows Capital One to connect with its customers and empowers their customers to create and manage their own service.

Several months before the book was to be ready for sale, we created a simple signup to accept pre-orders. Although we didn’t require customers to pay upfront, we still collected their complete contact information to let them know once the book was available.

About 2-weeks prior to receiving the books from the printer, we launched a PayPal-based ordering system and once the books came in, we immediately setup a merchant account to accept VISA and MasterCard.

This may seems like a very standard strategy for a book launch or any e-commerce website, but we took it one step further. The book, which focuses on issues surrounding environmental toxins, is a hot button issue for many people. Given this, we decided to launch an e-newsletter focused on the same subject. Thus came, The Invisible Killers Environmental Toxins Newsletter.

At first, we gathered up about 25 subscribers, a task that was much easier completed than we originally anticipated. From there, the list began to grow significantly each month, primarily through word-of-mouth referrals.

From this project, I’ve discovered several interesting facts:

1.) Every time a newsletter goes out, we end up with more subscribers
2.) Subscribers forward emails when you include a “Forward this Email” link
3.) Only about 50% of subscribers open their newsletter
4.) Subscribers respond to product discounts that require immediate action (within 1-2 weeks)
5.) The more subscribers you have, the faster your subscriber list will grow

Since launching our newsletter, our monthly visitors have increased almost 6-fold and growing exponentially each month.

Where do we go from here? Well, there are several different routes we can take. The easiest is to continue in the status quo and focus solely on building our newsletter, but a more likely scenario is to incorporate several Web 2.0 applications into the site to allow visitors to communicate with each other.

Poker.de – which is apparently an online poker room was sold at DOMAINfest last week for a reported $957,937. This is obviously a new record for the .de extension.

To see the top domain sales each week, check out: http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

I’ve outlined some simple tips below to help you successfully launch an affiliate program:

1. Invite your friends and family to be the first to join
2. Offer multi-tiered payouts to inspire your affiliates to recruit other affiliates
3. Provide customer support to your affiliates
4. Offer bonuses to those who achieve certain commission levels
5. Promote your program to online affiliate directories

Here are the two largest affiliate networks from which you can choose:

1. Commission Junction (http://www.cj.com/)
2. Linkshare (http://www.linkshare.com/)

If you are looking to host an affiliate program on your website, then check out iDevAffiliate (http://www.idevdirect.com/idevaffiliate.php)

The most important factor to consider when launching an affiliate program is to make sure that your payouts are competitive with other companies in your same industry, but not so competitive that your payouts exceed your profit margins.

About a week ago, I launched a new website for a strategic partner, MAMMOTH Distribution, which sells portable generators, water pumps and small engines. I’d consider the site to be a very traditional e-commerce setup.

As with most new sites, I had ZERO visitors the first evening that it was up. This was no surprise. I’ve launched several sites in the past and have been in this same situation dozens of times.

How do I compensate for having a new website with an immediate lack of visitors and a site that’s not yet indexed in the search engines?

There are a few keys strategies that I use to build up immediate visitation to any new e-commerce sites that I launch. I’ve outlined two main concepts that I think you will find helpful for your site:

1.) Craigslist– If you post an advertisement for your product(s) on Craigslist, you’ll get viewers to that ad. Make sure that you also post your website address, as this will help drive people to your site and build your inbound links for search engine indexing.

There are a few key strategies to keep in mind when posting to Craigslist to prevent your ad from being removed:

• Don’t post the same ad in multiple categories or in multiple cities, or it is certain to be flagged for removal
• Be specific and include prices and where/how to order
• Don’t use an permanent account or it will be easier for your advertisements to be tracked and flagged for removal

2.) Online PR – This concept is very straight forward. When you launch your website, continually create press releases that you can syndicate online through various PR sites. Some PR sites are free and some are not. I’ve outlined a few topics and websites that I like to use:

Possible topics:

• The launch of the website
• Any new strategic partnerships (web developer, new brands, etc.)
• New employees/partners
• New contracts

My favorite PR websites:

• PR.com (free)
• PRLeap.com (free)
• PRZoom.com (free)
• PRWeb.com (Not Free)

There are a number of additional PR sites that I use, but this should keep you busy.

1.) Diamond.com $7,500,000
2.) Vodka.com $3,000,000
3.) Cameras.com $1,500,000
4.) NAV.no 4.375 million Norwegian kroner  = $717,978
5.) On.com $635,000
6.) AntiSpyware.com $550,000
7.) Macau.com $550,000
8.) Wrestling.com $500,000
9.) Bike.com $500,000
10.) Blue.com $500,000

Source: DNJournal.com

For information about the top selling domains for 2007, visit the DN Journal Year-to-Date Sales Chart.