Strategic Chosen to Establish Information Security Leadership Position for Merchant Link

Silver Spring, MD (March 2, 2010) – Merchant Link, a leader in the secure payment gateway market that works with the world’s largest retail, lodging and restaurant merchants, has selected Strategic Communications Group, Inc. (Strategic), as its public relations agency of record. Strategic will work with Merchant Link to help increase its brand awareness and position the company as a technology and product leader in the data security and payments gateway markets.

Leveraging more than 15 years of experience as a credit card payment gateway provider, Merchant Link is looking to increase visibility as a data security leader that helps customers secure their infrastructure and achieve PCI compliance through the use of tokenization and encryption technologies.  Strategic’s experience in the information and data security markets, as well as the agency’s social media competencies were of great importance to Merchant Link.

“In each of the verticals that we sell into, one thing is clear – no customer wants to have their name in the headlines as the latest victim of a security breach with credit card information leaked,” said Tim Kinsella, Executive Vice president of Sales and Marketing at Merchant Link. “The largest brands across the nation recognize the importance of PCI compliance and are looking for a solution to help them do more than just meet the basics. We’ve asked Strategic to leverage their deep security market expertise and ability to execute on aggressive PR and social media campaigns to deliver our message.”

Shany Seawright, managing director and partner at Strategic, says, “There is no doubt that PCI compliance has been on the top of minds of businesses after many of the highly publicized breaches to-date.  There is a great opportunity for Merchant Link to leverage technologies in use by more than 120,000 organizations to help new customers secure the payment transaction and storage of data.  We are excited to be a part of the Merchant Link team and are looking forward to executing on an aggressive program designed to meet the company’s sales and business goals.“

Strategic’s representation of Merchant Link extends the agency’s business in the information, network and data security industry. The agency’s other security clients include British Telecom’s (BT) managed security services business, Solera Networks and NeuStar.

About Merchant Link
Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, Merchant-Link, Inc. (ML) offers technical support and data transport services for the integrated point-of-sale (POS) and electronic payments industry. The company provides problem resolution support for credit, debit, and other payment functions including inventory, accounting, and POS cash, and credit card sales. Merchant Link also offers systems integration, software development, helpdesk operations, and professional consulting services. The company currently supports more than 13,000 hotels, restaurants, ballparks, and other venues. For more information, visit http://www.merchantlink.com.

About Strategic Communications Group
Strategic Communications Group, Inc. (Strategic) is the only public relations consultancy of its size with an extensive track record helping the world’s largest and fastest growing technology, software, telecommunications and healthcare organizations achieve measurable return from social media marketing programs.  The agency’s client roster includes respected brands like BearingPoint (now part of Deloitte LLP), British Telecom (BT), Inmarsat, Microsoft, Monster, NeuStar, Sun Microsystems and TANDBERG.

What differentiates Strategic is its sales-oriented approach to social media engagement, and proven ability to leverage all of its industry connections and market relationships to identify sales, partnership, employee recruitment and financial/M&A opportunities for its clients.  For more information about the agency, visit http://www.gotostrategic.com.