Overview
Client
Mainland Machinery & Helical Works Co.
Industry
Custom Manufacturing, Bulk Material Handling & Industrial Conveyor Systems
Relationship
2013–Present
Services
Content Marketing
Search Visibility
Strategy
Website Design
Mainland Machinery has spent fifty years building a reputation in custom manufacturing for heavy industry, but it took time to find real focus in how that reputation translated into marketing and sales.
President Paul Hiebert brought Pohl Strategic in through a personal introduction from former partner, Gerry Wiebe, and what started as a project for Mainland’s own marketing grew into an integrated strategy spanning Mainland Machinery and its subsidiary, Helical Works Co., which was created to meet a specific gap in Western Canada’s bulk material handling industry.
Challenge
Mainland Machinery had never struggled with the manufacturing side of the business—nearly five decades of quality product and reliable service had seen to that.
What the company hadn’t yet solved was how to bring that same operational discipline to marketing and sales. Mainland had already taken some steps with another agency, including a website upgrade and some market research, but the effort lacked the integration to align marketing and sales with the rest of the business. When Helical Works Co. launched as a subsidiary to serve an underserved niche in conveyor products, that same challenge showed up again in a new form: a company entering the market with strong product fundamentals but no established brand or digital presence to introduce it.
Approach
Paul’s introduction to Pohl Strategic came through our close co-worker and partner, Gerry Wiebe, and it was clear early on that the culture fit was right.
Rather than treating marketing as a separate function, Pohl Strategic worked to get Mainland’s marketing, sales, operations, and management functioning from the same playbook, applying the same systems discipline Mainland already used in manufacturing to how the company found and closed business. That same integrated approach carried over to Helical Works Co., where Pohl Strategic supported the subsidiary from its inception through its ongoing market evolution, building its brand and digital presence essentially from scratch.
Strategy
AI-Optimized Marketing Strategy
Market Research
Pohl Strategic helped Mainland see that the systems built for manufacturing excellence could apply just as well to marketing and sales, and helped translate that thinking into a coherent go-to-market strategy for Helical Works Co. from day one.
Market research and messaging work shaped how Helical’s new off-the-shelf product lines would be positioned, while ongoing strategy work for Mainland focused on specialized products like its screw conveyors, giving them clearer visibility in a market that hadn’t seen them positioned that way before.
Website Design
Copywriting
Full Website Build
Landing Pages
Website Hosting & Maintenance
Written Website Content
For Helical Works Co., initial efforts centered on establishing a brand and building a website from the ground up to introduce the company to the market.
As the business matured, that early foundation gave way to a full website redesign built to promote Helical’s new off-the-shelf product lines.
Search Visibility
SEO/GEO
Early paid-search campaigns for Helical Works Co. needed landing pages built to convert, so Pohl Strategic optimized those pages to support pay-per-click efforts while the brand was still establishing itself in the market.
More recently, we have reviewed their website and made GEO updates page to page to improve AI-search visibility.
Content Marketing
Email Marketing
Social Media Management
Photography & Videography
As Helical Works’ marketing matured, Pohl Strategic built out a full content program: client case studies that told real-world stories about product applications, social media support, email marketing, and video content.
In early 2025, that program extended to announcing Helical’s strategic partnership with GSI (Grain Systems Inc.), the world’s largest manufacturer of steel farm bins and grain silos, positioning Helical’s conveyor products alongside GSI’s storage solutions for integrated systems.
Impact
Both companies are seeing the benefit of an integrated approach to marketing and sales.
Mainland Machinery has better visibility for specialized products like its screw conveyors, and can now track leads with a clarity it didn’t have before. Helical Works Co. has grown from a new subsidiary addressing a market gap into a company with an established brand, its own digital presence, and a high-profile partnership with GSI. Paul Hiebert is quick to point out that results in this industry take patience — sales cycles for Mainland’s bigger products can run months or years — but both companies remain committed to steady, continuous improvement. And Pohl Strategic is their key marketing partner.
“Pohl has been integral in forging our strategy around products like our specialized screw conveyors. We’re getting great visibility in the markets on that specific product. The team at Pohl has made it very easy for us to monitor the leads and we’re seeing an increase in sales,”
Paul Hiebert, President of Mainland Machinery.
