What is a good way to mass-market promote our Project Management
Software? We have a subscription model business - www.proworkflow.com.
Our target market is creatives, designers, web developers and other
creative service businesses. With all the problems with email, spam,
popups, junk mail, search engine challenges, we're trying to find a
good way to advertise to a large audience (10,000 - 30,000 people)
regularly and safely. Any help would be appreciated?

Hello -

Thanks for your question.  

With over 150,000 members, and millions of website viewers, there's
probably no better place to reach such a high concentration of people
in project management than with the Project Management Institute. 
They have a variety of ways to advertise with them on and off their
website -- from a catalog, to a journal, to a magazine and more.  It's
all detailed here:

  Advertising with PMI
  http://www.pmi.org/info/AP_Advertising.asp

Contact Holly Townsend for more information:

  Holly Townsend
  The Townsend Group, Inc.
  4920 Elm Street, Suite 325
  Bethesda, MD 20814 USA
  Phone: +1-301-215-6710
  Fax: +1-301-215-7704
  E-Mail: pmiads@townsend-group.com


PMI's online advertising would allow you to do "banner advertising", a
noninvasive means of reaching individuals through popup-free ads that
are placed on the actual website itself (not in a separate window).

Here's another website dedicated to Project Management, guaranteeing a
minimum of 25,000 impressions:

  Project Magazine
  http://www.projectmagazine.com/ratecard.html


You can use banner advertising on all sorts of sites related to your
company.  The about.com network is a great place to reach about 21
million unique visitors per month.   Here is one section of the
about.com network, devoted to web development:

  http://webdesign.about.com/

Here's another devoted to graphic design/desktop publishing:

  http://desktoppub.about.com/od/graphicdesign/index.htm?terms=graphic+design

And another on (Project) Management:

  http://management.about.com/od/projectmanagement/ 
 


You'll see the banner ads at the top of links above, which is just one
of a several different sized ads they provide, on hundreds of topics. 
Visit the http://www.about.com main page and type in topics relevant
to your project, and it will provide you a list of applicable sections
on the about.com network.


To find more sites to advertise on, I would recommend visiting the
Alexa service, at:

  http://www.alexa.com

Alexa catalogues websites by topic and popularity.  Enter in a topic
in their search bar, and you'll see a list of websites pertaining to
that keyword, sorted in descending order by popularity.  Click on a
site to see its traffic statistics.  Content-oriented sites will be
most relevant, as these typically offer banner advertising.  When
visiting sites, look for links generally at the bottom of their main
page labeled "Advertise with us" or "Advertising."  This will lead to
information on how to advertise on the site.


Google offers its Adwords program as an excellent means of targeting
prospective customers.  Ads appear in search results on the right hand
side, and they also can appear in other services of Google, such as
Google Answers, Gmail, Google Groups, and other areas.  You customize
your own campaign, specifying the exact keywords you want to have
display your ad.  For example, you could have your ad displayed
whenever someone searches on "project management" or "web design."

More information on Google Adwords can be found here:

  ://www.google.com/adwords



The website "MarketingProfs", a marketing site with "know-how from
professionals and professors," has an extensive article on corporate
"advertising on a budget" with numerous excellent suggestions:

  http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstID=280



Google search strategies:
<topical word here, such as "web design"> "advertise with us"
<topical word here, such as "web design"> "advertising with"



If you need any additional clarification or information, please don't
hesitate to ask.  Thank you!

jbf777
Researcher
Google Answers