Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hello all,

We are a small software company. We develop custom-based software for the Real Estate, Building and construction sectors.

For the upcoming 7th European Union Framework Programme, we want to form or take place in a consortium to prepare project proposals related to our expertise fields.

I am in charge to develop a kind of PR programme (?) to find/attract appropriate organizations (commercial / non-commercial) from all over the Europe who are interested in.

My question is what can I do to attract those organizations/companies?

As a starting point, I am working on a database which has around 350 potential organizations’ contact information.

The idea is to write a letter which introduces our company, experiences, and capabilities and send that letter via mail or e-mail. Is that a good idea?
If yes, should it be a plain letter or more like a brochure or leaflet format? How much information (how detailed) should we put?

How effective would this be? Can this be done in other ways?

Another idea is to develop a website (apart from our main website) which will focus only on our research activities. And maybe add some kind of contact form by which companies can register to our database if they are interested in.

What else can we do?

I appreciate your suggestions & advices.

Thank you all in advance.