Marketing Goes Heavy-Duty: Introducing Nick Adams & Dieselmatic

Hear ye, hear ye!

You may have already heard the good news, but if not, gather around for a tale—Fullbay has adopted—well, the technical term is acquired—Dieselmatic, a marketing agency built just for the diesel industry. Yes, folks, you heard right: diesel. marketing. agency. All that stuff we write about in our blogs and ebooks? They do it for you.

You can see why we were so interested in them.

Needless to say, we’re excited to be teaming up with Dieselmatic, and there’s some awesome stuff coming down the pipeline. But for now, we’d like to introduce you to Dieselmatic and its team, led by Nick Adams, the Managing Director (and founder!), who is probably bracing himself for all the weird sci-fi references our team is about to inflict on him.

What is Dieselmatic? Or, to quote our good friend Drax, Why is Dieselmatic?

The short answer: Dieselmatic is a full-service marketing and web design agency geared toward commercial repair shops in Canada and the United States. They offer cool stuff like website creation, Google Ads and social media management, and more. They’re similar to Fullbay in that their entire business model is centered around helping heavy-duty repair shops grow and turn more of a profit.

Now, Dieselmatic does differ a little bit from typical marketing agencies in that they operate on a month-to-month basis. That’s drawn from Nick’s personal philosophy, which is that marketing agencies should never sign contracts for six months or a year. “It should be up to the person running the business to make the call at any time,” he says. “If we’re constantly providing results that make you more money than you’re paying us, then it’s a smart business decision to keep working together.”

So, how does Dieselmatic keep its clientele happy? After a customer signs up, they start onboarding as fast as possible—this means a video meeting with the account manager and design team within the first week. The team continues to work closely with the customer, showing them the website as it’s constructed and gathering/incorporating feedback to produce a better product.

Usually after just a few weeks, the website is finalized and the marketing integrations like social media and Google Ads are about ready to go. Once everything launches, Dieselmatic continually optimizes campaigns and works on the website, providing updates to the client every three months to assess results.

Without Dieselmatic, by the way, you’re looking at hiring a lot of people (or at least contractors) to get a marketing push like this off the ground: writer, social media specialist, web designer…the list goes on. Dieselmatic puts it all in one convenient package, and you don’t have to lift a finger.

From English lit to diesel

The marketing industry attracts all sorts—including English lit majors.

Yes, grabbing that English lit degree and cannonballing into heavy-duty does seem a bit, well, unusual. But marketing is a welcoming field: if you’re willing to put in the work and learn, you can do very well, no matter what industry you’re marketing for.

Nick credits his education with helping him become a good marketer. “I don’t interpret Chaucer on a daily basis,” he says (and for that we thank him). “But the foundational principles translate really well—analytical principles that allow you to look at details and how that applies to a bigger picture in whatever industry you’re in.”

Nick does have some grounding in a related industry: as a youngster, he spent some time working alongside his grandfather in a boat repair shop. He is quick to point out that he’s not a mechanic, though he enjoyed the work.

Dieselmatic came around after he graduated and had begun establishing himself in the marketing field. He started out as a generalist, but after working with a few commercial repair shops, he realized something: local marketing agencies didn’t know what an EGR or DPF were.*

On top of that, truck repair owners are busy. You know it, we know it, Nick knows it. They don’t have the time to sit down and show their marketers everything they need to know about diesel terminology and how the field operates.

Nick saw his opportunity. A marketing firm that knew the diesel field could provide the kind of service commercial repair shops need and deserve.

The challenges of marketing for the diesel industry

We’ve written about marketing a lot here at Fullbay, and generally speaking, a lot of the shops we talk to fall into one of these categories:

1. They aren’t doing any marketing at all.
2. They are maybe doing some old-school marketing, like flyers and billboards, but they haven’t tried making the switch to digital yet (or they have, but don’t have the time to dedicate to it).

Dieselmatic can help both types of customers. Yes, they’ve taken over marketing efforts for those who have never tried it. They’ve also stepped in to guide shops into the digital realm of Google Ads, social media, and everything else in the virtual space.

Because digital marketing is so new to this industry, results are often surprising.

Nick told us a particularly astonishing story about taking over the marketing of a shop earning around $500,000 per year. That shop is now making about $2 million a year, thanks to Dieselmatic’s marketing efforts. The owner now lives in a very nice house on four acres of property.

Nick describes it as a light bulb moment. “We’re not only making a difference in this guy’s business, but in his life,” he says. “I think we can replicate that in a lot of areas.”

You can see why we liked these guys so much.

Dieselmatic and Fullbay: a match made in marketing heaven

The similarities between Fullbay and Dieselmatic keep piling up. Both of these companies grew up around the radical idea that shop owners need more time, and both leverage technology to help get that job done. Fullbay accomplishes this by streamlining and simplifying shop management. Dieselmatic streamlines and simplifies marketing (or takes it off the owner’s plate entirely, if that’s what they want).

By joining forces, we aim to become the ultimate tool in the shop owner’s arsenal. By the way, Fullbay customers and non-customers can use Dieselmatic—but we’ve got some fantastic plans for those who use both. For instance, you’ll be able to see your ROI reporting right inside Fullbay. Your shop revenue and your marketing investment, side by side? Yes, please!

We’re excited to see what this partnership can do for the industry, and we hope you are, too. Welcome, Nick and Dieselmatic, to the Fullbay family—we’re thrilled you’ve joined us on the ride!

*Exhaust gas recirculation and diesel particulate filter, respectively.