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The term “general merchandise” sounds vague, but it really describes what most large retailers do. Most big box stores sell similar products that are low in price. They make their money off of marketing strategies like product placement, keeping inventory lower, and offering coupons or discounts to draw customers.
Dollar General is one such store. Not only does DG offer very cheap items, they also advertise how much of an affordable place they are by not having a lot of flashy displays or advertising. Their advertisements focus more on giving value for your dollar instead.
Their marketing strategy includes supporting charities, hosting events, and sponsoring games and sports teams. All of these things add luster to their brand while promoting charity at the same time!
Interchangeable
General merchandise staples can be replaced without too much effort. This makes it easy to start buying them, as you would need few of each item to begin using those products.
For example, I have seen almost every color shirt at least once from DG. Many people know me now because I always dress in solid white shirts with black pants.
As mentioned earlier, Dollar General is an inexpensive store that does not discriminate when it comes to customers! With this in mind, how can we use their marketing strategies to be influenced by them?
Dollar General markets themselves as a low price-value store so they appeal to people who are conscious of spending money but also want good quality items. They know what kind of customer they have and continue to develop products and services that cater to those buyers.
Their marketing strategies include things such as TV advertisements, online ads, direct mailers, etc. All of these types of advertising promote dollar general and its value as a place to buy cheap goods.
The most effective ways to advertise for Dollar General are through television commercials, billboards, and magazine advertisements. These types of advertisements feature lots of different products that cost less than $10 each.
These products are all related to or designed to help make your life more efficient or helpful. For example, if you run a grocery store then you would know that stocking up on food is one of the best ways to save money in the long run.
Stocking up at Dollar General means there will be no need to purchase expensive groceries from other stores because everything you need is available within their walls.
As mentioned before, your business does not exist without people, and using social media to gain attention is a powerful way to draw in new audiences.
As you gather content and information for this article, think about what type of content would be helpful for others in your industry who may be facing similar problems as yours.
Your potential audience can get very hungry for knowledge so make sure you are giving them that!
By creating an educational online hub, you will give back to the community, inspire other entrepreneurs, and help them start their own businesses. Your company’s website is one of the most important tools you have at your disposal to promote this site.
A well-designed website will emphasize how great your products or services are while also clearly outlining how you differ from your competition. This will create a lasting impression that will motivate prospective clients to visit your site.
But how do you get more traffic to your site? There are many ways to achieve this including through SEO (search engine optimization), social media advertising, and influencer marketing.
As mentioned earlier, you do not need a large budget to have an effective marketing strategy for your business. In fact, there are many ways you can use free or cheap resources to promote your dollar general store.
You can put up posters, spread advertisements through social media sites, add pictures and descriptions to online stores, start conversations about money saving strategies in areas where potential customers may be, host giveaways via social media or your website, etc.
As mentioned before, creating your business’s online presence is an important step in giving your company exposure. With the cost of domain names and hosting around $20-30 per year, it is not expensive to start your own site!
DollarGeneral.com took great care in choosing their domain name and establishing themselves as a trustworthy source. By having your own domain name you can create an effective online identity for yourself and your business.
Your web address will show up when people type your business’s exact match or close match slug (the main part of the URL that comes after the www or non-www) in Google or other search engines.
By using appropriate keywords in your domain name, you give your business more credibility and visibility on the internet. You also have the opportunity to use SEO (search engine optimization) to make your site more accessible to potential customers.
As mentioned earlier, creating an online presence is one of your most important business strategies. With a decent amount of spending monthly on a website domain and hosting, you can start writing about things that matter to your business and how to run it more efficiently.
You can pick anywhere to write – from personal blogs to business blogs to YouTube channels! Starting with a few basic rules will ensure your content is professional and reflects well upon yourself.
Your tone needs to be natural and casual but still professional. Don’t use slang or informal language unless you are speaking directly to a large audience like on YouTube where people may not know who you are yet. Use appropriate vocabulary and establish a style you feel comfortable in.
Don’t worry about being perfect at first as long as you have something written then back-out, refresh and repeat! The internet is a very accessible place so if someone comments or questions a term or idea, you can find the answers quickly. Your followers, readers and critics will soon grow accustomed to your voice and style.
Keep learning! Read other bloggers’ posts, watch videos and listen to podcasts to get inspiration and tips for blogging. You don’t need to spend lots of money on educational materials, there are plenty free ones available as well.
As mentioned earlier, Social Media is an integral part of any successful marketing campaign. With their low price points and wide availability, it makes sense to use Social Media as a tool to promote your company!
Dollar General knows this very well and has made creating profile pages for all of its sites a way to market the store. They make sure to include lots of products pictures, location maps, and customer reviews to help spread the word about what they have to offer.
By having these easy to update accounts, they are able to keep up with the ever changing online community and style trends. This helps them to connect with other people who may or may not be familiar with DG but still want to learn more about them.
Interacting with others like them can also help expose you business to new opportunities. By adding friends to different companies via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you increase your exposure exponentially.
This is one of the most important things you can do as a dollar general store manager or marketer. Companies that succeed in the retail industry distribute large amounts of material to increase their exposure.
They may put up new advertisements, offer coupons for daily purchases, run sale flyers, and/or send out direct messages via email or social media.
By distributing enough information, people will eventually find your business!
This way, your company gets spread across all available channels, which boosts your marketing reach. It also helps your business get noticed more easily, since there’s not much else going on at this time.
Running low on supplies? Check out some of our tips here on how to survive a pandemic with limited resources.
As mentioned before, one of the best ways to increase foot traffic at your business is by offering frequent deals or discounts. This can be for anything from snacks to clothing to jewelry – even things such as monthly memberships or free merchandise!
Running special offers helps create buzz about your business and attracts new customers. It also gives current customers an incentive to come back since they get their favorite items for less money.
Your business could offer daily discounts, weekly discounts, monthly discounts, yearly membership fees, and so on. There are limitless opportunities to have sales in order to draw in new customers.
