When the guru you’re stalking runs a contest (for example, when they launch a new product and the top performing JV partners get prizes), that’s a moment of opportunity. Pull out all the stops…or at least all the stops you can pull out ethically (don’t start spamming or anything), and do your best to win the contest, or at least show up on the leader board.

Of course, that’s easy to say, and not so easy to do. It pays to plan ahead and be ready when the opportunity strikes.

Build and nurture your mailing list (make sure your relationship with them is good so that they’ll buy through you).

Get some freebies ready (especially valuable are unique freebies that no one else can offer) to give to people who buy through your affiliate link — you may want to hold a few “aces” back for just a time like this just to make sure all your customers who want it don’t already have it. Don’t be afraid to give away a lot of value — more than you would just for the commissions. After all, your primary goal is to build a relationship with the guru.

Build some anticipation and curiosity before their launch if possible by announcing that you’re going to be giving away some very valuable thing (but don’t say too much about what it is until launch time).

Do everything you can to drive traffic to your offer — blog about it, email your list a few times (be willing to have a couple of people unsubscribe if they think you’re mailing too often…but make sure that your providing valuable free information in your emails to reduce the probability!), email your family and friends and ask them to forward your message to anyone they know who might be interested (and tell them why), run a pay per click campaign — anything you can think of.

Get other people to throw in bonuses for people who buy through your link and split the commissions with them. Offer a big share to your partners — again, your goal is to have the best possible offer and the most possible people promoting it.

These are just a few ideas that popped into my head for how you might turn on the afterburners for a short time when your chances to make an impression are best (which raises that possibility that you might want to do all this some time other than when they’re running a contest if you really don’t think you can make the leader board). Spend some time brainstorming and come up with more. Turn off your normal “that would cost too much or be too hard” filter when coming up with ideas…but weigh the costs against the potential gains when choosing which ideas to implement.

A final note: if you’re giving away downloadable bonuses to promote a ClickBank product or a product sold through another affiliate program that supports Fast JV, you might consider using it to handle some of the work for you.