Marketing Guidelines

Even though you "own" your eCosway business, it's important to remember that you are just one part in our Company’s system. It is absolutely crucial that you do not jeopardize our relationships or our reputation by marketing or promoting your business inappropriately. Off-limit activities are fully outlined in the Advertising & Anti-Spam Policies. Please read them now if you have not done so already. It is crucial that you understand exactly what is allowed and what is not allowed in your marketing efforts in eCosway.

Here are the most important points:

• Representation
  You are not allowed to use the eCosway, Cosway or Berjaya Company names or any of our terms and trademarks, or any derivative of these names in any manner that has not been pre-approved by the Company. This means that unless you have prior written permission from the Company, you can’t register any website names, email names, blog & microblog names, social media site IDs / usernames, pages or groups e.g. on Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. containing the words eCosway, Cosway, Berjaya, Mutual Marketing, or any other of our terms and trademarks or any derivatives of those names. You also cannot mention any of those names on any website, group, forum, blog, microblog, social media, etc. that you put up yourself.
  
  
• Spam
  You cannot involved the company in SPAM (unsolicited approach). In other words, you cannot send any email, faxes, or instant messages to anyone nor post any messages on forums, blogs, etc. mentioning eCosway UNLESS you have obtained written (and can prove that you have obtained) prior permission from them. In other words, you must use a 2-step process where you obtain permission to send info without mentioning our Company first. Once you obtain permission, you can send company specific and company sanctioned information.
  
  
• Search Engines
  You are not allowed to put the words eCosway or Cosway in your search terms, keywords, or hidden in your pages (even if they are invisible). In other words, you are not allowed to optimize your page to come up if a person searches for eCosway or Cosway through a search engine. This is a standard policy with any network marketing company as it is obviously very unfair to all Business Owner if someone tries to grab all online attention directed to the company. It is also dangerous and damaging to the company’s reputation to have personal sites coming up when a person searches these terms. 
  
  
• Photos
  Most of the photos on the eCosway website are copyrighted and licensed from other companies.  
  You cannot take them use them for your own materials as this violates copyright rules.
  
  
• Recordings
  You are not allowed to upload any video or audio recordings of Company speeches, training sessions or talks on any websites, blogs, forums, groups, or media sites like YouTube, MySpace, etc. without prior written permission from the Company.

eCosway must have complete control over the manner in which the Company is presented to the public.

This is very important because:

• It protects the eCosway image, brand and credibility. (What would happen to the eCosway image if everyone were allowed to create their own logos, slogans or pitches and make their own claims?)
  
  
• It protects eCosway legally. Although many governments (including the U.S., Malaysia, Australia and Canada) are willing and able to prosecute individuals who mislead prospects, in the end, it is the Company that will get hit the hardest legally if independent business owners make income claims, use illegal terms, present inaccurate details, exaggerate the facts and make false promises. There are a lot of laws about advertising. Every Business Owner cannot be expected to know and follow all international laws, so eCosway must have policies of what is and is not acceptable.

This does NOT mean that you can't use the name eCosway in your prospecting efforts.
It simply means that YOU CAN ONLY USE COMPANY DESIGNED OR APPROVED MATERIALS.

This is a standard policy for any company that has independent people representing it to the public. eCosway provides you with pre-approved, company-made materials. If you have other materials or wording you would like to use, or if you want to manipulate or change the materials given to you by eCosway, you must submit them to the Company for approval before using them. Using non-approved materials (ads, flyers, business cards, websites, email updates / newsletters, etc.) with eCosway's name anywhere on them is in VIOLATION of eCosway's policies and procedures and puts your business ownership in jeopardy.

Photos from the Website

The photos you see on the eCosway website are not owned by eCosway. They are licensed from photo agencies. The license does not extend to individual Business Owners (except in the use of company produced materials). If you take photos off of our website and use them in your own website or email, you are likely to be sued by a photo agency and forced to pay royalty fees plus damages. Any photos you use anywhere in print or on the web must either be owned by you, used with permission by the owner, or licensed from a photo agency. If you like a particular photo on our website and would like to pay the owner for a license to use it, please contact eCosway for the owner information on that particular photo.

Articles and Text from the Website

All of the text on the eCosway website is copyrighted by eCosway or outside authors. You cannot take wording from the website and use it in any way you please. You must use the website as it is and use the training resources as they are. If you intend to use and/or modify any text from the eCosway website, you must get written permission first.

If you think things can be said better, or if you want other information to be presented, please make suggestions to the corporate office. Do not simply modify the content that eCosway produces and then "republish" it with your modifications. We often have important legal reasons for saying things exactly as we do.

eCosway's Logo

You cannot make and use your own eCosway logo. Even if you think your logo is better, you simply cannot use it because it will cause confusion and inconsistency in the marketplace. Can you imagine if every McDonald's franchise owner came up with his or her own logo?

Income Claims, Promises to the Lazy, & Purchase Requirements

eCosway is NOT a pyramid scheme (click here for details). Please don't turn it into one by making the wrong claims!

Sometimes in their zeal to persuade people, Business Owners are tempted to say things like, "you are guaranteed to make $10,000 per month" or, "your downline will be built for you", or "no selling required" or "all you have to do is buy one product per month". But that kind of zeal will get you and eCosway into a lot of trouble. In many countries these types of claims are legal "no nos". If you are interested in understanding all of the laws surrounding these types of claims, you can visit our attorney's website at http://www.mlmlaw.com. The bottom line is this:

• You should never ever claim that a person can make a certain amount of money with your program or "guarantee" someone that they will make money. Income in a legitimate company is always based only on consumer sales, which of course, can never be guaranteed.
  
  
• If you use one of the income scenario charts or use an average monthly sales amount for each Business Owner, you MUST include the following disclaimer with the chart.
  
  

  This is a hypothetical example that illustrates the components and operation of the eCosway Profit Plan. It is not representative of the income that eCosway Business Owners can or will earn nor is it a guarantee or projection of your actual earnings or profits. Any representation or guarantee of earnings, whether made by eCosway or a Business Owner, would be misleading since earnings are entirely dependent on the sales volume generated by your network. Your actual profit will depend on how well you build your network and generate sales volume.

• You should never show an income statement, business status page, or bank document to show that you or other Business Owners are making a specific amount of money (even if it's true). Government agencies are very much against this activity because it can mislead people to believe that anyone can make that same amount of money. Unless you can prove that the vast majority of people in your company are earning that amount, you aren't allowed to talk about it in public.
  
  
• You should never make eCosway Business Ownership sound like a simple "investment"- where all a person has to do is sign up, pay some money, and then let the profits roll in. eCosway is a legitimate retail business with a powerful support system. The support system and modern technology certainly make things easier, but it is very important that you don't make it sound like people won't have to do any work at all. The laws surrounding "passive income" claims are very dangerous and complicated. True businesses obviously require effort. If an opportunity claims that people can earn income without any personal effort, it is immediately considered to be either a pyramid scheme, or an illegal security by many government agencies.
  
  
• In many other countries, any company that requires a purchase from members is automatically considered a pyramid scheme. eCosway does not have any purchase requirements whatsoever. Never tell people that they have to purchase 15eV per month. The 15eV per month is a PERSONAL BRANCH requirement. The sales can come from any shopper or combination of shoppers in your personal branch. Personal purchases can be included in this.

Unsolicited Email or "SPAM"

Many Business Owners have expressed the idea that if they own their own business, they should be able to promote it however they choose. But remember…your business is part of a larger whole. Your actions in this area have the potential to affect a lot of people.

eCosway has a zero-tolerance policy against questionable or objectionable marketing methods such as spamming (sending out unsolicited email), broadcast faxing, mass posting to newsgroups, forums, bulletin boards, blogs & microblogs, social media sites like Facebook, etc.

This policy is very important because:

• It protects eCosway's image. (People don't like companies who do such things and the Internet community moves quickly to "bad-mouth" any company who violates "netiquette" (commonly agreed upon rules of behavior on the Internet) consumer trust, or consumer privacy. It is not in anyone's best interest to have eCosway seen as a "bad guy" or a "sleazy company."
  
  
• It protects eCosway legally. Many states, countries and jurisdictions have laws against sending unsolicited advertising especially regarding telephone, fax machines and email.
  
  
• It protects all eCosway Business Owners from losing the opportunity to promote eCosway in legitimate and acceptable ways (see explanation below).

The single-most harmful thing you can do is to send unsolicited email to a "list" of people who did not agree to receive it!

It is quite common for people who are new to the Internet (and whose e-mailboxes are not yet bombarded with dozens of spam emails per day) to think that broadcast emailing is a good idea. They see great potential in being able to reach thousands (if not millions) of people with the push of a button, and they don't see any harm in it.

It is very important that you understand how serious the "spamming" issue is.
Please, DO NOT START PROMOTING YOUR ECOSWAY BUSINESS ONLINE UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND WHY SPAMMING IS NOT A GOOD IDEA!

Spam doesn't work. You probably think that thousands of people will respond, but there are several reasons why this isn't true. A large percentage of the mail sent to those lists will be undeliverable because the addresses either don't exist, or have been turned off because of too much spam. Most of the names on those lists were either:

• "Harvested" off the Internet (from people who didn't give any permission) using "spy" software that grabs addresses from forums, classified ad sections, etc.
  
  
• Made up by computers (using popular names and every possible alphanumeric combination in front of all popular email endings, like Mary@yahoo.com, Mary1@yahoo.com, ABC123@yahoo.com, etc.
  
  
• Stolen from other lists (which means the people on those lists have been spammed a lot already)

In all of these cases, your mail is not going to be "welcomed" by the recipient. Most ISPs routinely filter out anything that looks like spam, and even if it gets through, most people are tired of being pitched, and are afraid of catching electronic viruses, so they delete any email from an unknown sender even before opening it.

Spam costs other people money. Some people even consider it "stealing."

Unlike regular mail or advertising, sending email costs the sender very little, but can cost the recipient time and money. People who pay for their internet connections in time increments or who check their email while travelling, get very frustrated when their "inboxes" are filled with unsolicited email that has to be downloaded and sorted before they can read important business and personal email.

It also costs ISPs (Internet Service Providers) money to send, receive, and "bounce" unwanted email. Therefore many ISPs actively seek to not only block, but also to punish "spammers."

Spam can get you into a lot of trouble.

When mail is undeliverable, it "bounces back" to the original server. The minute you start sending out bulk mail, the server is already bogged down because of the outgoing load. It gets further bogged down when the undeliverables start bouncing back (it only takes a few seconds). Even if your list contains millions of names, it's not likely your email server will get through even 50,000 of them before your ISP (Internet Service Provider) shuts down your account and comes after you for violating your agreement with them.

You might think, "oh well, 50,000 is still a good number - it's worth the risk"…. But remember that once your email account is shut down you won't be able to receive any replies anyway. You would be exceptionally lucky if you received even a handful of positive replies, and you can be sure that you'll make hundreds if not thousands of people REALLY ANGRY AT YOU! (Not a good way to start a business!)

The people who hate being spammed (and believe me there will be plenty of these on your list) will start reporting you to your ISP, to their own ISP, to anti-spam cops, etc. It will only be a matter of hours (or perhaps days) before you are in a heap of trouble. This is trouble that we cannot allow you to bring on eCosway!

Email marketing may seem like a "goldmine," but it is actually full of landmines and you have to make sure you do it correctly.

Here's what happens when someone sends a spam email:

1. Someone who receives the email gets upset because they hate spam.
   
   
2. They complain to (and send a copy of the spam email to) to their own ISP. Then either the recipient of the email, or the ISP sends a copy of the email to the spammers ISP and to one or more "anti-spam" organizations who will take action to track down all responsible parties and to do everything possible to punish the spammer.
   
   
3. The "punishment" can include legal action, the sender's email account being terminated, and any domains owned by the sender being shut down by his or her web host (even if the domain isn't on the same server that sent the email.).
   
   
4. Then, the worst happens. Anti-spam organizations "black list" all parties who are "behind" the spam. Even if a spammer uses false headers, relays the email from an unsuspecting domain, and doesn't use a real return address (which are all illegal by the way) - it is still possible to track down who sent the email-- because the sender has to give prospects a way to take action!
   
   
5. Anti-spam organizations figure that not only is the spammer guilty, but so is any company benefiting from the solicitation. The company that makes the product or service being pitched is blacklisted along with the person who sent the email. Anti-spam organizations figure that a company has the power to regulate its promoters. If the company allows or doesn't stop people from spamming to promote its products or services, then the company is considered guilty.

Spam has the potential to hurt the Company and all of your fellow business owners because major email providers (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, AOL, AT&T, MSN, etc.) want to protect their users from receiving unsolicited email. They use "intelligent search agents" to screen all incoming mail before delivering it to the end-user. If they suspect that your email is spam, they send it to the spam cops and blacklists. These blacklists are shared by all major email providers and used to block email from offenders.

Once a company gets "blacklisted," it is very difficult to get off those blacklists.

One spammer can ruin it for everyone! If you sent out spam which contained an eCosway domain and that email got turned over to the anti-spammers… it wouldn't take long before all of the major ISPs started bouncing all email containing any ecosway.com addresses!

In other words, if ecosway.com were blacklisted, then even when innocent Business Owners tried to send legitimate email (to friends and to prospects who requested more information) the email might not be delivered because it contained an ecosway.com URL!

We would have to fight to get off of the blacklist. In order to do that we would have to prove that we immediately terminated any Business Owner who was caught spamming. Ignorance is not an excuse. We will have no choice but to terminate your business ownership and we are likely to hold you financially responsible for any disruption of our business if you cause these kinds of problems.

Personal Websites

Some Business Owners complain about the part of the policy that says that they cannot link to eCosway from a private website. They claim that their own websites should not be regulated by eCosway. Some have also argued that even if a person were spammed to get them to the private site, once they clicked on a link to eCosway they are "giving permission" to be pitched and therefore eCosway cannot be accused of spamming. Unfortunately, that's not the way the anti-spammers see it.

It's true that a webmaster's own site should be considered his or her own private property, but if the private website is linked to eCosway and then promoted using tactics such as spamming or broadcasting to forums and discussion groups, the risk to eCosway is still high and therefore eCosway certainly has the right to ban such a link.

If a website owner is caught spamming, anti-spam organizations will not only blacklist the private website address, but also any websites that are promoted by that website. Even if a spammer were to set up several intermediary websites, the risk to eCosway is not eliminated.

The problem doesn't come from people who click on an eCosway link by choice. The problem comes from the people who are spammed by email or through a broadcast posting to a discussion group and may never even visit the private website. Once the email (that leads to the private website, that leads to eCosway…) gets turned over to the spam cops, they can easily follow the trail to eCosway. Since eCosway is one of the intended beneficiaries of the spam, it is highly likely that it will be blacklisted along with the private website.

The easiest way to avoid all these problems is NOT to spam!

Our SPAM policy does not say that you can't ever link to eCosway from a private site. It says that you cannot link to eCosway from a private site if the private site has content which has not been pre-approved by eCosway, or if that site is promoted in any manner that violates our spam policy. If your site content has been given corporate approval and you don't do any objectionable promoting of that site, you are welcome to link to eCosway.

There are plenty of ways to promote your private website without spamming. If you’re going to send emails or business presentations, just make sure you have first been given "explicit permission to pitch" – meaning that the prospect has asked you to talk about your products or your business or has otherwise given you permission to use "persuasive talk or advertising" with them by email, mail, phone or fax.

In the event of a "spam complaint" lodged against you, you will need to have "proof" that you obtained this permission before you solicited the person who is complaining about you. Therefore it is really important that you do the following:

• Don't send ANY unsolicited emails, faxes, phone calls, etc. (If you don't send them, nobody can ever produce evidence that you did. Your ownership and your email accounts will not be terminated based on verbal accusations. Complainers will have to produce some proof that you spammed them such as a copy of an email, a fax, or telephone logs.)
  
  
• Keep a copy of all requests for information you receive so that you can produce them if you ever need to. Make back-up copies or print out hard copies to make sure you are fully protected against any false spam complaints.
  
  
• If you set up autoresponders or create an "opt-in" mailing system, make sure you keep records that prove that someone actually entered any email address that you mailed to. In fact, the safest thing to do is called "double opt-in." When a person initially signs up for something, the system should immediately send an email making sure the entry was authorized by the owner of the email address.

For example, if you offer some kind of a newsletter, your first message should read something like this:;

NOTE: Your autoresponder system should have the capability of automatically removing an address from the system when a link is clicked. NEVER send another email to an address that has been removed!

This is actually more of an "opt-out" system and a person might not bother to read the email, much less to click on the "remove" link, so you could still be reported for spamming. Make sure you still keep a record of the initial request made by your prospects.

What You Can Do To Promote Your eCosway Business

• Tell all of your friends and relatives about eCosway in person or by phone.
  
  
• Bring people to our Sales Centres / Stores.
  
  
• Place GENERIC (not mentioning or linking to eCosway) classified ads (online and offline) using an email address, your own private website address (NOT linked to eCosway except as allowed), or an autoresponder address.
  
  
• Send GENERIC (not mentioning or linking to eCosway) email to your friends and relatives asking for permission to send them information.
  
  
• Set up a GENERIC (not mentioning or linking to eCosway) website that asks people to trigger an autoresponder or to email you for more information and submit it to the search engines.
  
  
• Once you have used generic email, websites or autoresponders to gain explicit permission to pitch, you can send an email that links to your eCosway website.
  
  
• Use any materials, presentations, etc. about eCosway provided specifically for that purpose by or pre-approved by eCosway. (But not through spamming or inappropriate advertising.)
  
  
• Use any GENERIC materials, presentations, etc. not pre-approved by eCosway, (which do not refer to or link to eCosway), that serve to get leads and permission to introduce a business opportunity or product. (Please note that even though you are not mentioning eCosway at this time, if your efforts are on behalf of eCosway, you must make sure that your statements are honest, accurate, ethical and well presented. Do not promote a "get rich quick scheme" or make income claims!)
  
  
• Start meeting people (both online and offline). When they ask you for more information, send them to your eCosway site.

Always Use Two Steps

Always think in terms of a TWO-STEP PROCESS.
First get "permission to pitch" from a prospect
Then (and only then) talk to them about or link to eCosway .

This accomplishes two things: It protects eCosway from spam complaints and it makes sure that eCosway is only seen by prospects in a manner that eCosway has approved of.

The only exception to the two step rule concerns

• signature files (sig files)
  
  
• and classified ads

You must NEVER use the name eCosway or your ecosway website address in a signature file or classified ad

You can however, use a generic website of your own in a signature file to intrigue people, and then later guide them to eCosway.

General Marketing Ethnics

Be Honest
eCosway is "in it for the long haul”. Unlike fly by night companies that can say anything they want and then simply change addresses, domains, policies, etc. when regulators come knocking, eCosway has taken the high road legally and ethically. eCosway's business vision is based on the "long view”. It is very important that our Business Owners act as ambassadors of that vision. Please represent eCosway in a straightforward, honest manner. Don't mislead people and don't use false promises, fake names, disguised headers or fake domains, etc. in any of your marketing efforts for eCosway.

Be Realistic and Straightforward
eCosway is a legitimate business ownership opportunity. The "real deal" is exciting enough on its own, please don't embellish the facts!

Be a Team Player (Together Everyone Achieves More)
Even though each Business Owner or Shopper can only have one introducer, all happy Business Owners and Shoppers are assets to eCosway and give the company a good reputation. Please be kind, helpful and businesslike to all Business Owners, Shoppers, and prospects.

• Don't solicit Business Owners of other people's eCosway global networks. You wouldn't want someone to do it to you.

• Don't say negative things about other Business Owners to try to get prospects into your network instead of theirs.
  
  
• If a Business Owner of someone else's network asks you for assistance, don't say no just because they aren't in your group. While you certainly aren't obligated to take in "strays," it doesn't hurt to help wherever and whenever you can.