If there's one thing I've learned as a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers, it's that you have to be constantly evolving and trying new things to scale your business. In August 2022, I had my biggest month yet on TPT, and here are three things I did to make it happen.

In this episode, you will learn about:

• 3 things that helped contribute to a month that knocked the socks off of previous months
• Tips and recommendations on optimizing your resources
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Resources and Links

Your Data Playbook

Convertkit

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Let's connect!

• TPT Store: ⁠The Southern Teach⁠
• Website: ⁠thesouthernteachdesigns.com⁠
• Instagram: ⁠@thesouthernteach⁠⁠.designs⁠
• Facebook: ⁠The Southern Teach Design and Branding
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Kirsten 0:00

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hello, there, I wanted to share with you a little bit about I guess what happened in my TPT store during the big rush of back to school sales in August. And how it ended up working out for me. August, usually is a really great month for a lot of TPT sellers. Because it's the beginning of the school year, a lot of people are eager to get some resources as I start the year, maybe they've switched grade levels or subjects. And they're looking for some resources to add to the repertoire. So usually for a lot of TPT sellers, August and September are really great back to school, high sales months. And I know there are some sellers out there that were a little disappointed that it was either the same or not really as great as the previous year. And I totally commiserate with that. I know that it's so frustrating to, you know, have this expectation of something that usually does really well for you, and then it just falls flat. So I definitely understand what you might have been feeling if you felt that I want to share with you a little bit of how my month went and kind of a few things that I did, I think to make it or get that way. So I will share a few tips.

They gave me I sent in my information. And they gave me a back to school strategy plan, based on the previous years back to school. So during the month of August, September, I received an Excel sheet of my top selling resources. During that time, they also gave suggestions of what I could do to optimize my products, some would have some might be to increase the price, some were to change the covers and thumbnails. So they were giving some good suggestions as a guide for me to figure out what I needed to change. And so I did that I spent the end of July updating over 50 resources. And it was not just like, just the resource itself, it was the product listings, I updated the covers, I changed the wording in the descriptions, I changed the wording in the titles, I felt like some of the titles were outdated, and I needed to move around some key words. And I did that also with the thumbnails. And also I added a landscape preview, I updated my preview format. So that was something that was a big thing that I did was really updating that preview, I took some photos of my resources that hadn't been added up there. So I basically took the time to update some of my best sellers that sold really well, in the previous year. It was not. This was one of the times where I did a little bit much like I could have spaced it out a little bit. But I was just so excited to update it and get it done before August rolls around. And I do think that helped contribute to the increase in sales and conversion rates.

Something else that is in the membership, your data playbook is that each month they give you some they give you some data based on your resources and how it does. And you can select certain resources to see view to preview, which is how the percentage of people who view your resource, and they're on the page of your resource where the product listing is, and click on that preview. So that's a percentage that they look at. And then there's also preview to purchase. How many people take that preview, and like what they see, they add it to their cart, and they actually buy it. So that's another percentage. That's something I really wanted to focus on with some of my best sellers, how can I raise that preview to purchase? And also what could I do to increase the view, you know, increase the journey of view to preview and preview to purchase is what I really wanted to do. For example, my best seller that I did a complete revamp of you know, the preview all of that kind of stuff, I increased my view to preview 14% From July to August, and then I increased my preview to purchase 74% From July to August. So that was just one resource that already was selling really well. And I was able to make some tweaks in my I didn't do anything to the actual resource, it was just the product listings. Now there of course, are other factors such as you know, people not really buying in July versus August. But I do think that it helped a lot that I was able to update those listings.

Another thing was being more purposeful in my marketing campaign. I primarily like to use email marketing, specifically with ConvertKit. And I did a couple of things I made sure to apply for the TPT gift card. They had the you know, email, we're having a sale. And the first however many people if you fill out the form, you can get a gift card to share with your followers. And I did that the first time I did it with my Instagram followers that not only gave me an increase of followers, but I also got a lot of participation and it worked really well. I was really happy to give that gift card to the lucky winner. And then for the bonus sale, I was able to set up a little landing page and in order to enter they had to put their first name and email and subscribe to my email list. So that was something that also did surprisingly well. I got a good amount of subscribers And even after I announced the winner, not too many people unsubscribed. So that was great. So they obviously, you know, wanted to stay on within that, you know, giving out the gift cards and emailing my followers during the sale. And before the sale. That also was something I think that helped. I know, some people might say, Oh, no, I couldn't email my followers. So many times they get, they get bombarded with so many emails, I would never do that. And, you know, not everybody's cup of tea. But a lot of marketers out there, especially when there is some something that's time sensitive, you have to put it on your subscribers radar. And while it might be like a little daunting to have to have people, you know, oh, they're gonna unsubscribe. And I don't want to bombard them, it's kind of what you have to do as a marketer, especially if this, you know, event is time sensitive. I know Amy Porterfield talks about it all the time. And she does it all the time, when she's launching her course, or membership, there's a lot of emails. And I've learned that when people are in some type of campaign where they are emailing a lot, sometimes you know, I'm hit or miss it depends on what that is, you know, depends on what they sell and what their product is. But more times than not, I'm probably going to delete it. No, no harm done. I'm not going to unsubscribe or anything like that. But sometimes I do look into it. And I'm like, Okay, what are they really offering. So you never know what your subscribers are thinking, they may just, you know, delete, delete, delete, it'll be over eventually. Or they might actually, you know, okay, I'm gonna see what what she has to offer. And, you know, see if it might be right for me. So you never know which of those emails they could pick up. And so that's something that I made sure to do for both sales. And I did get an increase of unsubscribes. But that's just the nature of things when you have those campaigns, those time sensitive campaigns. But I also got a lot of clicks, a lot of click throughs, and a lot of traffic in my store from my email. So it ends up being a win, I think in my book,

The third thing that I did, I think that helped contribute to sales, was posting timely resources. Usually, my increase of product creation, posting resources increases. So not only was I updating some product listings, but I was also adding a few new resources. And I made sure to launch a new resource around the time of the sale. And then additionally, I added more resources right around the bonus sale. So that was something, you know, just kind of getting some eyes on things. I know, it's a really great strategy to post resources during the sale, but you have to go back and make sure that it's priced, you know, with a 20% discount. So you have to go back in TPT. And make sure that all your items are selected as on sale if you do post something during the sale. So that's just the only thing to think about. But it could be a really great way you know, somebody sees it, it's new, it's on sale, and you can get a discount for it. That's something that I think is a really great strategy. And I use that for a couple of my new product lines. Those are a few things that I did that I think contributed to a really great August.

So I'm kind of like nervous about how next August is gonna go if we're going to surpass that, but I'll take that as the time comes. But number one would be you know, really look at the data look and see what you can update tweak in your product listings, how can you optimize those prices, your data playbook is a really great way to to have it just all in front of you. It was so so helpful, I think very integral in my success for the month of August. The second thing is to have some type of marketing campaign, maybe it's on social media, maybe it's through email, but have a plan in which you are talking to your audience, getting that buzz around certain products that you really want to highlight during the back to school season that will be perfect for that timeframe or maybe for the whole year. And then the third thing would be to add resources right before are right during the sale. That could be a really great strategy to get more eyes and more people to convert. All right, well that is it for This episode

thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.