I-care Gains High Level Content Critical to Filling Sales Funnel from Partnership with Michael Mackenzie Communications

When Chief Growth Officer Maxime Limbourg of I-care took over the company’s marketing effort in 2024, he immediately noticed that the information sales prospects need early in their buying journey was nonexistent. I-care, a well-known brand in Europe, provides predictive maintenance (PdM) and IoT-enabled reliability solutions that help maximize equipment uptime in industrial and manufacturing environments.

The company’s sales and marketing teams use a sales funnel to follow prospects during the selling cycle. A striated sales funnel uses different tiers to show how a prospect’s need for information changes as decision making progresses. For example, prospects at the top of the funnel are interested in knowing that the company they are considering is financially stable and will be around to support them over time. When a prospect moves down the funnel, questions about solution capabilities, competitive advantages and total cost of ownership come into play.

Limbourg knew that filling the funnel would require that I-care increase its visibility globally and begin reaching a larger universe of prospects. With more opportunities to position its flagship Wi-care™ wireless sensors, I-care could continue to sustain its rapid growth. Wi-care sensors capture asset health data (such as vibration and temperature) from strategically placed IoT-enabled monitoring points and transmit this data to the I-see platform, where it is analyzed to detect early signs of failure and help prevent costly, unplanned downtime in industrial operations.

“We are a company of engineers who are the best discussing solution capabilities and comparing solutions but that is not what customers at the top and middle of the funnel need,” explained Limbourg.

Partnering with One U.S. Agency for Global Content

To streamline the content creation and curation process, Limbourg decided to work exclusively with one U.S.-based agency. “We are a global company that is based in Europe, which means our vocabulary and the way we speak English has a French angle,” he said. “It was important to me to have native English speakers writing our content. The U.S. connection was critical to capturing our story for America, which is a major market for us.”

Limbourg asked his team who had written the sole customer story on the I-care website and learned it was authored by a U.S.-based marketing agency. “I heard positive feedback about that agency and was assured that the agency understood industrial operations and predictive maintenance. Once we met with Michael Mackenzie Communications (MMC), we knew they were the answer to our content problem,” Limbourg said.

SMEs Share Expertise to Fuel Content Creation

Before the writing started, Limbourg and MMC met to set a content strategy that focused on a list of key micro topics tied to the early funnel stages. Limbourg identified I-care’s key subject matter experts (SMEs) who could provide the information MMC needed to create a wide-ranging set of early- and mid-funnel content. I-care’s SMEs included experts with diverse capabilities ranging from technology to software to industrial operations knowledge.

For Limbourg, having a trusted partner creating content is ideal. Once he hands off micro-topics to the MMC team and the appropriate SME, he is not involved again until the final content review. “I’m the last to read the article and approve for posting to the website,” he said. “MMC has been able to create a significant volume of content from their interviews with our SMEs. This content brings a great deal of value to us, and we now have a pipeline full of new content to feature on our website and publish to our LinkedIn account.”

Limbourg’s in-house SEO manager ensures that the content created by MMC is fully integrated into the company’s broader content architecture and overall SEO strategy. Each piece is aligned with priority topics, structured within the internal linking framework, and optimized to contribute to long-term organic visibility and search performance.In addition, I-care’s internal marketing specialists create infographics to complement the content and often repurpose it into video.

“From our side, the communication was smooth with the MMC team and the SMEs. As a result of MMC’s work, we received valuable content we could publish, feed to our sales teams and place on our website,” Limbourg said. “This new high-level content immediately increased visibility, which helped more prospects find us earlier in their buying journey.”

In addition to generating online content, MMC also authors a steady stream of media releases which position I-care alongside larger, well-known industrial brands. The distribution of these releases supports brand recognition and contributes to stronger digital authority and online visibility worldwide.

Content Brought Strong Results in 12 Months

“In less than one year, we already have good results, and I have someone who is proactive with follow-up,” said Limbourg. said.

Limbourg credits the efficiency of MMC’s content creation process and the quality of the final content as two key reasons he sees the relationship as valuable. “Producing quality content requires a deep understanding of our market and the ability to ask good questions. MMC has a good understanding of what we do and knows how to present the content in a way that is suitable for the world market.”

“I’m really happy with the MMC partnership,” Limbourg said.

About I-care