Brian Garvin-top affiliate marketers

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Brian Garvin

Brian is probably the top earning marketing affiliate on the web today. He is responsible for developing the popular mailing list script Optin Lightning…

Brian’s web sites are:

http://www.optinlightning.com
http://www.garvinweb.com/reprints_galore.shtml
http://www.garvinweb.com/money

http://www.garvinweb.com/moneyjr

How did you start affiliate marketing?

Hmm.. I checked out http://associateprograms.com and started reading Allan Gardyne’s free newsletter each week. I fell down a lot at first, but started really picking up my position in these programs after using Opt-In Lightning at http://optinlightning.com

What are some of the key points you look for when choosing an affiliate program to promote?

1. Little or no external links. In other words, if I’m going to spend money to draw traffic to your site don’t have 10 of your own affiliate programs up there. It just isn’t fair and I’ll dump the program even if it pays 50% commissions.

2. If you’re running a Clickbank program, don’t have options to order via another payment processor.

3. Offer $10.00/mo. residual income or $50.00 per sale. 4. If you skip a month sending me a payment, I better get a good explanation via email or phone and in all cases I’ll expect full back-pay.

5. Don’t use PayPal if you’re running a residual income program. I don’t use them anymore because they are extremely unreliable.

6. When I start earning serious money with you give me the chance to call the owner personally. This approach I think is standard for top resellers in a good company serious about growth.
Those are the main things I look for.
Do you suggest a potential affiliate becomes familiar with a product before they promote it? Please explain.

I don’t think it’s necessary to PURCHASE a product to promote an affiliate program, but you should read the entire sales letter. This way you can outline the hallmarks of the program and write the "killer ad copy" you need to make customers break out their credit cards.

If someone is on a tight budget, what are some of the first steps they absolutely need to take to get started on becoming a top affiliate?

The best way is to build an optin list. Every time you send out an ad, show the people on that list how to subscribe to your ezine.

My best answer to this question is, and I’ll use an analogy is how I promote Host4Profit. I’ve never placed an ezine ad promoting them but yet I’m the top reseller for them. How is this? I sell Opt-In Lightning at http://optinlightning.com. Everyone who purchases the script, which is a hot seller, needs a compatible host. I let them know that Host4Profit is 100% compatible with my script.

So people flock to the network on my recommendation after purchasing my software. So the key is to promote an affiliate program that offers residual income on the back-end that’s complimentary to the product you sell on the front-end.

How do you suggest promoting affiliate programs?
(i.e.: Do you suggest using the web sites, ads, URL’s provided or doing your own unique promotion?)

I never use the resources or ad copy provided by the affiliate managers. I might use the ad copy for ideas but I’ll do major tweaking before I send it out.

I’ll always for instance include an AOL link. The way affiliate managers setup their programs they never include one.

In your experience, why is it that most affiliates never receive a commission check?

The key to succeeding in any affiliate program is to bring as much qualified traffic to your offer as possible (as you can afford). The leads are out there, the people are out there, and they are spending money every single day, but the question is can you afford to advertise to them?

What do you feel is the #1 most important thing you are doing to stay a successful top marketing affiliate?

About once every couple of weeks I login and check the stats on my favorite programs. If I see my income slipping on one, I’ll send out a few ads to keep my top or near top position in the program.

What is the difference between you (The Top Affiliate) and all of the other affiliates promoting the same programs?

I think the difference is that I actually signup for a program, read the website, meditate and get a marketing strategy together for it before I start aggressively promoting it.

What traffic generating techniques do you use to advertise affiliate programs? Do you advertise at all? If not, explain.

My favorite and main technique by far Lisa is Ezine Advertising. Think about it, every other form of advertising, whether it be banners, viral marketing or whatever is "after the fact" advertising. Because EVERY internet marketer joins mailing lists that allow people to put their offer in front of them.

What are some ways you do NOT recommend when promoting your web site or affiliate programs?

I wouldn’t recommend posting to free FFA links, Free Classifieds, Pop-Ups or any type of guaranteed traffic programs. Just because traffic is guaranteed doesn’t mean it’s qualified.

What do you think is the biggest mistake new affiliates make?

I think new affiliates get too fascinated by ads that say "send out 150,000,000" emails per month for $49.95. Lets be honest, if someone were to send out 150M real emails, it would cost about $400,000.00 just in Bandwidth Charges.

Sending out one million REAL emails on a good program can make one wealthy almost overnight.

But the cost for a legit service to send out this many would be about $8,000.00, and worth every penny. Watch out for these kinds of ads, they are just scams. I was burned by a couple of them as a newbie, so don’t make the same mistake.

Please donate 1-2 of your favorite and most helpful resource links.

My favorite link is Net Break Throughs. Terry Dean is a friend of mine and I visit his site a couple times per week to check out the new advertising Hot Sites and to read and post questions. Most of the time I give advice but even the best of us need help from time to time. I’m not ashamed to admit this even though I think I’ll be the top earner on the net within 1-2 years.

Here’s the URL to Terry Dean’s site:

http://bigdogpit.com/go/go.php/nbt

Please donate an affiliate marketing tip along with your link.

Here’s one of my favorite tips. I heard it from Marlon Sanders but I use it all the time as a theoretical guideline to gage where my business is going. Find out where the money is and throw yourself right in the middle of it.

I think I’ve gained so much popularity on the internet because I’ve taken some of the most popular programs on the internet and became a top reseller for them.

Hundreds of thousands of people were involved and my name was always mentioned in the company newsletters, etc..

This also got so many serious marketers and even lots of top marketers on my mailing list. It works!!

Finally, keep your eyes peeled for Lead Lightning Launching May 01st, 2002 by Gary Ambrose and myself. It will offer 25 ad Free Auto responders, Superior Ad Tracking like you’ve never seen before and a Reminder Service.

Affiliates will be able to earn a 6 figure back-end income just using and promoting this service. It’s too much to explain here but we want everyone to earn huge checks with it. Here’s the URL..

http://leadlightning.com

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