MarketLink Services Focuses in on Hot Markets - Government and Education

Online, November 3, 2009 (Newswire.com) - Novi, Michigan - MarketLink Services Inc. announces the launch of a state/local government and education (SLED) market development service. This specialized practice is focused on driving demand and revenue for technology providers in the SLED vertical.

Government and educational institutions offer tremendous business opportunities for technology providers. The SLED market is a large community of state, county and municipal governments, and kindergarten-12 and higher education institutions. Among the 50 U.S. state and five U.S. properties, there are 3,141 counties and 88,000 municipalities, 1,300 which have more than 25,000 residents. In the same group, there are 15,746 school districts and 4,171 higher-education colleges and universities. With about 1,500 recent Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants (EECBG) awarded, governments and educators are looking for the latest technology to improve the quality and efficiency of their facilities.

Although promising, successful penetration of these markets is very challenging. There are many requirements to being a successful supplier to this vertical and, without the resources to address this market, most companies will fail.

"MarketLink recognizes the opportunity and the complexities associated with penetrating these markets. We have established a team of talented personnel to oversee and drive the activities within this space, utilizing our existing sales, marketing and support teams to provide the pursuit, management and support of the opportunities."

MarketLink provides the following services for the SLED vertical:

• RFP and bid response service - Monitor RFPs through several services and distributes to local clients for follow up. Builds a response template on behalf of our VAR and integrator customers to ensure our clients are bid competitively and our resellers are capable of providing a bid.

• Grant writing - Help clients write grants to specify or acquire products based on available grant money from government and private agencies

• Project consulting - Work with consultants, engineers and architects involved in high-tech specification projects

• Direct marketing - Market directly to government and education institutions on behalf of our clients in order to create awareness and drive demand for our clients' technology products

• Indirect marketing - Market through e-mail and Web-based initiatives

• Trade show support - Provide booth space and coverage at key industry events