Advise on best advertising sources?

Hello fellow Vendors! I am trying to put together a marketing plan and advertising budget for my company. My company is small and this is the first marketing plan created for the company. Does anyone have any advise on where to advertise to get our name out and hopefully get some leads?
For example, is anybody advertising in the NAA Buyers Guide and if so, have you received any leads from it? Or what about advertising online, banners on websites, banners on e-newsletters, etc.?
Also, I just became a member of our local association and plan on getting involved in a committee. Does sponsoring events for associations benefit you?
And what about developing an email marketing campaign to blast potential clients monthly or quarterly about something educational, like top 5 tips...is this something that might be deleted and is annoying or is it worth doing?
Any advise would be appreciated!

Hi Karen,
I'll touch on the few parts that I'm familiar with... I would definitely try out an email marketing campaign, but make sure the overall focus is free information, with sales elements mixed in, rather than the other way around.

As for advertising in different places online, make sure you understand what their demographics are and how they can help. For example, although we are becoming much more local, and may even reach that this year, for now we are a national organization. So I routinely turn local companies away from becoming a sponsor because it wouldn't be a good match for them. (Although you might as well get the free basic supplier listing just in case.)

Hope that helped!

And I just realized I continued to spell advice wrong...oops! Not enough coffee this morning

Thanks Brent!

Karen,
I feel for you as I was in the same situation for many years as a local flooring company specializing in the Multifamily industry. For me and most of the other suppliers I work with the best and most immediate response/return was presence. Just show up regularly to local association events and join a committee. To volunteer on a committee only costs a couple hours of your time a month. Also, network with fellow suppliers; they know who the players are and what is happening in the local market. See if you can sponsor a lunch or breakfast for an education class at the local association. For $50 you get to stand up in front of management professionals taking a class to further their career and introduce yourself. Also, what your company can do for them.

I'm not sure what area you are in, but my company (MyRentComps) is in 6 states; 12 in 3 months. We partner with local associations to provide online market surveys for all the mulitfamily communities in their geographical area. Every community uses market surveys to set their rents, so instead of calling competitors and compiling the report; we do it online for them. They just have to log in an input their rent information to be able to see their competitors information. We create interaction between the management people and our sponsor by giving away prizes for answering questions about the supplier. Example: Appliance Warehouse in Florida gave away $100. Users had to answer a question about Appliance warehouse from their website. They only get entered if they answer the question correctly. Every user that plays (Click,Play,Win)information is then forwarded to Appliance Warehouse to follow up. We create great warm leads.

Hope I was able to give you some insight.

Karen,

What does your company sell, and where do they sell it? It really matters, for in this space, the professionals that you sell to are really, really overworked. You need something that will make their lives easier, and/or allow them to do their job faster/better. Having served in the business for 25 years, word of mouth works best, but clearly if your firm is new to the space, that will take some time. Would be happy to talk to you, so look me up on linkedin, and I would be happy to share some ideas. For example, the US Mail works really well.

Robert,
Basically my company, Ancillary Services Management, is an outsourced ancillary services department for property owners and management companies. Currently, we are a small company. The president/owner, Andrew Smith, started the company in 2003 and most of his business has been from referrals, so he is not new to the industry (He worked for a few companies before he started his own business developing their ancillary departments). Now he is looking to grow his business. We provide our service nationally. Like you said, they need something to make their lives easier and allow them to do their jobs faster and better, well that is what our goal is and what we can do for them. We just need to get our name out there. I have joined our local association and going to get more involved in that. Also, it seems like social media is the place to get noticed by participating in discussions, etc..
I will connect with you on LinkedIn to get some more ideas.
Thank you!

For a service such as yours, I would recommend you advertise/connect where most of your customers are, i.e. if you do any print advertising, advertise where the rentals are advertised. As you are National, you might want to look at Search Engine Marketing aspects and tie any print products together so you are driving traffic back to yourself.

I like the prospect of local radio.