It can be hard to know how to share your resources outside of the Teachers pay Teachers platform - especially when we as teachers have a background in education and NOT marketing! Which platform is best for marketing your TPT business to drive potential customers into your TPT store? 

In this episode, we will talk about 4 common types of online marketing (that entrepreneurs use throughout many niches - not just in the education world!) and discuss how to know which ones may be best to use for your business. We'll dip our feet in and talk about the benefits of each type of online marketing.

In this episode, you will learn:  

• Why social media marketing is a great piece of short-form content for those who love to connect and get creative 
• Why to utilize email marketing if you love to write and provide value to your audience 
• Why content marketing is a great way to increase organic search traffic and conversions for resources in your store 
• Why ads are for you if you want to reach your target audience and bring awareness to your store 
• Three steps to decide which of the four platforms will be best for you and your business 
• 
  

 If you're eager to learn a step-by-step framework on showcasing your resources through product listings, enroll in The Product Listing Lab at https://www.thesouthernteachdesigns.com/enroll  

Let's connect!TPT Store: ⁠The Southern Teach⁠

Website: ⁠thesouthernteachdesigns.com⁠

Instagram: ⁠@thesouthernteach⁠⁠.designs⁠

Facebook: ⁠The Southern Teach Design and Branding

Mentioned in this episode:

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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 inside and outside of the classrooms. I am Kiersten a full time classroom teacher and part time business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small, to in each week, as I give you my best advice on classroom teaching, and starting and growing a teacher business. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Well, hey there, welcome to another episode of the creative Teacher Podcast. I'm always excited to bring you a new episode because I love the topics that I share with you. And I know you may be feeling the same thing. So if you're listening to this, and you've been listening for a while, or maybe you just started tuning in, I would love it if you could subscribe and rate, the podcast and what you love about the creative teacher podcast. I love seeing reviews and hearing positive feedback about this show. And I would love for others to see that as well. So if you have a teacher, friend or TPT seller friends that you think they would have totally enjoy this podcast, I would recommend you not only referring this to them, but also just in general, if you could like and subscribe and rate the podcast, I would absolutely be grateful for you.

Today's topic is about four types of online marketing and the one that could be best for your TPT business. So the question that we're asking today is, what type of platform should I use to market my TPT products. If you remember last week's episode, we talked about how you may or may not be ready to market outside of TPT. So if you didn't take that quiz that we went over last week, totally do that. And then come back to this one. But we're going to today talk about four different types of online marketing, and the one that could be the best for your business. The good news about being an online entrepreneur as you are with your TPT business is that you don't have to do all the things you can do what works best for you in your business. So I am definitely a proponent of doing what is good for you. If you're not really loving to write a lot, then don't start a blog. If you don't like showing your face, then don't start a YouTube channel. So there's so many different ways you can market your TPT resources and drive traffic to your TPT store. And the best part about it is that you can decide what it is and you don't have to do all of it. So that's what we're going to be talking about the four types of online marketing. So here we go.

The first type is one that's pretty familiar and has been around for a while. And that is social media marketing. The platforms you may see with social media marketing would be Facebook, Instagram, tik, Tok, Twitter and maybe even clubhouse if you've heard of clubhouse. It's kind of like a impromptu podcast where people will meet up and you kind of go into a room and you can listen in on different topics. I have a clubhouse, and I'm not really on it that much. I'm just I have never ever hosted anything I just listen in. But I haven't really been on it just because it's just not for me. For me. It's way too spammy and salesy and there's way too many people I feel like there's way too many cooks in the kitchen and so it's not for me, I'm more of a Instagram person, and Facebook, but mostly Instagram. Social media marketing is great for you. If you You are good at entertaining and connecting with an audience. And the cool thing about it is that it's short form content. So you can post a lot of those fun short videos, 10 second reels, or a tick tock video, it doesn't have to be a dance, it can just be your, you have some type of clip and you're dubbing over and making some funny actions with your face or something like that. Or it's just a way to show your product in action. For the most part, it's very quick. And if you post something, within those 24 hours, you're gonna get the most reach and likes and engagement. And then after that, not as much and it kind of goes away, and then kind of gets pushed down where you have newer content. Another cool thing about social media is that it's a great way to use a variety of visually appealing content. So you've got photos, you can create graphics or templates, and videos, you can get creative with it, if you really like the visual part of social media and like how you can get aesthetic with your feed. And adding photos and pictures of your resources. And all that kind of stuff that would be good for you. A consideration for social media marketing is that you have to get creative in creating new content that relates to your business, rather than a curation of content from other people. You are usually trying to create your own content for others, usually your audience that relates to your business, and you want to move away from a curation of content. So you're just not You're not always trying to repost other people's reels or reposting other people's posts. What I like to do though, is if I really think a post is funny, or there's content that I really want to share that somebody else posted, I share it in my stories, and sometimes I'll post it in my feed as well. But that's very rare. Most of the time. My Instagram feed is mostly what I've created, it's content that I have created myself. So to sum up social media. This type of marketing is great. If you love to connect with an audience, you're all about short form content, you love visually appealing photos and graphics, and you love to create new content all the time.

Email is another type of online marketing. This would include the following, you would have newsletter emails, lead nurturing emails, and promotional emails are all a part of email marketing. Now, there are some pros and cons, of course, to email marketing. But it usually is a great way to create personalized content, you can always tag people based on what they opt into, or what they click on. So there's a lot of ways you can segment and tag your audience. Using your email service provider that you use. It increases conversions. So usually, email marketing is a really great way to increase conversion rates, you end up chronologically in people's inboxes. And they're more likely to see it whereas with social media, a very small percentage of people are seeing your content, since there's always that type of algorithm, so not everybody's gonna see it. But with email marketing, if they're on your email list, and you have permission to send to them, they're going to see it. And you can always increase conversions by the type of subject lines you use to get them to actually open in and click. And so there's a whole thing about what you can do to get people to click and get interested in what you have to offer when you send them an email. Email marketing is also good because it helps provide value to your audience. This is a really great way to provide value to them. You can be a thought leader you're getting them to know like and trust you and your business you eventually can get them to buy. Another positive of email marketing is that you own your email lists. Nobody else owns it. Facebook doesn't own it, Zuckerberg doesn't own it, you own your email list. So even if Facebook or Instagram may go away or just stop working, then that's okay because you have your email lists and you can still reach your audiences as long as they are still subscribed. So in summary, email is really great for you. If you love to create personalized content, you love the tagging and segmenting that goes into it. If you love providing value to your audience, you love writing you love the idea of owning your email, and not having to rely on an algorithm for people to see you and see what you have to say.

The last type of online marketing is using ADS, Instagram and Facebook ads. This is a really great way for driving traffic to your store. It could be difficult to understand ads are not necessarily the friendliest or easiest to navigate. But it's still a really great way to drive traffic to your store. It's a great way to reach audiences and cold leads to help you bring awareness to your store. Usually content and email and social media marketing requires some warm leads where people are like they've been following you for a short amount of time or a period of time before they buy. With ads, you could get more cold leads to help you bring awareness to your store. And people can know more about you. Ads are also good if you love data and analyzing results. Or if you're not big on the hoopla of connecting with others and you just don't have the time to create a ton of content. So you're just sending ads to your best resources. So if you're not all about, you know making some tick tock videos or putting out a weekly blog or sending out emails, then maybe ads would be good for you because you can kind of just set it and forget it if you know what you're doing with him. But it does take practice it takes time to learn and it's not the easiest to learn, but it's still very worthwhile. Here's my creative action tip for you. I've gone through four different types of online marketing, social media marketing with Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok and Twitter and clubhouse email marketing where you can send newsletter emails, lead nurturing emails, promotional emails, content marketing, where you can create long form content such as a blog, podcast, or vlog, and ads. So using Instagram, Facebook, and I'm going to add Google ads and Pinterest ads. If you get a little fancier with that you can go on and expand to those. T

hink about these three steps on how to decide which of these marketing platforms are best for you in your business. Step number one, think about where your ideal t shirt customer hangs out. Think about who your resources are for. Are they mostly on social media? Are they mostly going on blogs? Are they doing a little bit of both? Step number two, think about which platform you enjoy. As a consumer, if you enjoy listening to podcasts, and your ideal teacher customer enjoys listening to podcasts, that can be something that you can consider as a type of marketing platform. Another example if you like to be on Instagram and your audience also likes to be on Instagram, you can always start with having some type of Instagram account. Step number three, start with a familiar low hanging fruit. So I mentioned two platforms, a podcast Instagram, think about which one would be the easiest for me, Instagram would be the easiest. Instagram would have been something that I've been on longer. I've had an Instagram account since I was 21. But whereas podcasts I'm not quite as familiar and so I would be more comfortable with Instagram before I might venture on to podcasts. Hint, this is exactly what I did. I started with a Instagram account before venturing on to podcasts, and Facebook and ads and all of that stuff. So start small start with the low hanging fruit. But definitely think about where your ideal teacher customer hangs out where you enjoy as a consumer and then start with the familiar and go from there.

If you're looking for even more tips, I have a free live masterclass that's starting today called glow up your store for strategies every teacher author should be using to boost TPT store sales. So during this live masterclass, you'll be learning a major mindset shift that all teacher authors need to make for their TPT store, how to move and groove with data and use it to fuel your next best selling resource. Why listings make or break sales and how to give people what they want without giving too much of your resource away. And in a simple and effective way to optimize what you have so you can be visible to your audience and work smarter and not harder. So if you want a spot to that masterclass, you can go to the southern teach.com forward slash masterclass to reserve your spot.

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.