Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

I would take some of that budget and invest in social media marketing. That way you become part of the discussion not just someone bouncing ads off people. This will also help when you do advertise.

Also, I would create a program based on blogs and white papers that are helpful to IT people. That will build you intellectual capital and once again you are part of the discussion and will become a thought leader.

Email should play a big part of your program, especially to announce new white papers. You can start to build your list by using www.jigsaw.com.

Good luck with you efforts.

I'd begin by surveying your existing clients. What magazines do they subscribe to? What blogs/websites to they visit? What professional organizations are they members of? This will help you to find others who are likely to also need your services.

As for the specifics you're asking about - they are all tools. You pick the right tools for the job based on who/how you want to contact your prospects. Whatever you do choose - start slowly to measure ROI, split testing where appropriate, before spending a lot of money.

I would spend some of that money creating resources for IT professionals. Create some useful articles or tips. This will elp create the image of being knowledgeable professionals. This infromation may also get picked up by bloggers interested in IT, thus driving traffic to you. This is usually money well spent as it has a longer useable lifge than ads and is usually more benefical to people.

I would also spend some of that money optimizing your website so that you are ther top listingf in oragnic searches.

Hope this helps.
Mike

Rather than spending the money on something you can do once and then will never lead to additional customers after the first push, you might want to build up your inbound marketing authority, which will results in increased leads each and every month from now on.

For example, if you were to build up your presence in search engines using SEO and a blog, and then promote that content in social media, you can increase your traffic and search engine rankings - and this new presence tends to be maintained for a long time. This is the opposite of advertising, when you do a big email blast for $20,000, get some leads, and then the next month you have to start over from ground zero again.

PS - For $6,000 you can buy a 1 year subscription to the inbound marketing software my company offers. [URL deleted by staff -- use My Profile for this information, please] - then you could spend the other 14,000 on Google AdWords or something.

Before I did anything I would make sure that my website is the best it can be. Click-throughs don't amount to much if you lose them as soon as they get to your site. As Mike mentions, that includes optimizing for the search engines. And, as others suggest, you should have thought leadership materials that you can use on your site to drive inquiries and establish credibility.

Once I had the website to where it needs to be (although that never ends) I'd move onto Google Adwords. It's simple, inexpensive and can drive traffic pretty easily.

I'd also work with a company that could help me create some good email campaigns built around my thought leadership offerings. Create 3-6 that support your message and you can use over and over again.

You might also want to have someone create some banner ads that you can use once you determine where the Canadian IT professionals go to get there information. I'd Google to see if I could find a Canadian IT professional trade show and go to it so you can meet some of them and ask them where they get their information. You can also see which publications support the show.

All of the above will be wasted if you don't have a decent nurture program in place.

Finally, I would look into companies like Hubspot and see what they can do for you. You can learn a lot by working with outside vendors.

I'm sure I missed a lot, but hopefully that helps a bit. 20K will go fast but it's a nice healthy amount that you should be able to do something with.

All the best!

Melissa

This is what we do for our clients in your situation. I will use approved keywords to run similar search engine ranking reports against your top 3-5 competitors.We will determine and report to you the number of pages on your website found within the major search engine databases. These databases include Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves. These databases power the major search engines like AOL, Altavista, AllTheWeb, and more.This information is vital to understanding which sections of your site are being indexed by various search engine spiders.After careful selection of relevant keyword and keyword phrases per page, Blazin Multimedia constructs search engine friendly HTML code, including page unique Titles, META Descriptions,ALT Tags, and Navigation and Link Structures which include:
• Examination of internal linking structure including the selection of link names and titles.
• Proper site navigation including linking strategies such as addition or modification of a site
map.
• File and page name structuring.

One of the most important aspects of Search Engine optimization is to have the appropriate content
that the search engines require for a top ranking. Blazin Multimedia has a team of Search Engine
copywriters, expert in writing content that will generate top rankings. Our services include:
• Writing additional content if needed for your web pages
• Rewriting and working existing content
• Generating articles and press releases as needed to boost your rankings
In addition we will closely examine web page body content, and will utilize its copywriting team to create “smart” website copy that will appeal both to the your consumer and the search engines.

This is just to give you an idea on what are some of the things we can do...when it comes to marketing we can cover it all and help you to become successful with a high ROI, contact me if you have any questions. Isaac