Hello Affiliates

Banner Changes
I've recently made a few changes to the affiliate sysem and want to keep you posted. I'll start with the most important one - the banners have changed in your affiliate control panel. This may affect banners already displayed on your site. Sorry about the change but these are better banners and I want you to have access to them. I still have the old banners. If you need them, send me an e-mail message.

New Banners
I have banners similar to Speed Kills 3, designed by the same artist for the following products:

You can download these and upload them to your site. Just right-click on the image and select "Save Image As."

Affiliate Message
The affiliate message on the site has changed. Hopefully, it's a little clearer and explains the amount of traffic necessary to get a sale: http://www.metalmethod.com/idevaffiliate/index.php

Login
When we upgraded the shop-metalmethod.com site the affiliate login procedure changed. The people that designed the upgrade (which has nothing to do with us) forgot to include a redirect. This is a command to take you to the affiliate control panel. It seems as if this problem has been corrected. I just tested it and it worked fine: http://www.shop-metalmethod.com/myaccount_affiliate.asp

Site Overhaul (It Looks better)
Shop-Metalmethod.com now appears much more similar to metalmethod.com. I've also removed almost all of the phone numbers from shop-metalmethod.com so you're customers can't place a phone order. If they place a phone order the tracking information is lost. Don't worry, almost nobody orders by phone any more. I'm very close to cutting my 24/7 answering service loose.

But Wait, There's More
If you're bored, you can leave now. I've covered most of the important stuff. The next section is for the aggressive marketer. I've created some pages that are completely encoded for affiliates. Every link on the page has an affiliate ID. So, if a customer clicks-on any link, they're your customer for the next thirty days. One note, don't just promote Metal Method, be specific. Pick out a single item and link to it.

Complete Basic Course: http://www.metalmethod.com/affiliate/complete_course.htm

Stage One:
http://www.metalmethod.com/affiliate/stage_one.htm

Speed Kills 3:
http://www.metalmethod.com/affiliate/speed_kills_3.htm

Here's The Procedure

1. Click-on the link. Select "File" in your browser, then "Save File As" and save the page along with a folder containing all of the graphics to your hard drive.

2. Open up the html file with notepad. Find and replace "100" with your affiliate number- unless you're Sarah. Sarah is affiliate 100 so if you forget to replace the 100 with your affiliate number you will make Sarah very happy.

3. Upload the folder and html page to your site. Link to this page to promote these three items.

Every link on the page will register your affiliate number on shop-metalmethod.com.

On The Other Hand
If you're not a nerd like me and this all sounds too complicated let me do it for you. I'll post your page on my site, replace the code with your affiliate number and you're all set to go.

Then What?
I'll give you the link to your page. Next time you're chatting online or posting to a bulletin board, give other guitarists the link to the page I created for you. If they click on any one of the 42 links on the page they will be directed to shop-metalmethod.com with your affiliate code. The code registers as soon as they enter the site. If they make a purchase in the next thirty days you get 30% of the sale price.

You can also post this link on your myspace or facebook page. It's all good.