A Strategy for Creating New Products for Your Teachers Pay Teachers Store

There are only a few ways that a business can actually make money, and yes your TPT store is a business. The most common way that a business makes money, and probably the first way, is to have something to sell.

This may not sound like a revolutionary idea to you, but I have to confess that when I started my first website, I did not grasp this concept. For months, I slaved away promoting my website, trying to get page views and Facebook likes, and getting frustrated that I was not making much money. But I had nothing to sell!

After my first year of having a webpage, it finally occurred to me that having something to sell would help increase my revenue. Once I finally created my first product, I then started a TpT page, and I noticed something. My revenue increased, and it increased in a proportional manner to the number of products I had in my store.

A Corny Illustration

Let’s pretend I was throwing a barbecue, and I decided that I was going to serve corn to my guests. And in this story, you happen to own a corn stand at the local farmer’s market

So I hop in my car, and drive to your stand. I am a faithful customer of yours, and I’ve come today to purchase some corn. After purchasing several ears and exchanging some pleasantries, I go about the rest of my day preparing for my barbecue.

No let’s assume that instead of going to your stand to purchase corn I went to the local grocery store to purchase my much needed ears of corn. Of course, their corn isn’t as good as yours, but it will get the job done. But while I’m at the grocery store I noticed that watermelon is on sale, and I think that watermelon would be a tasty treat for my dinner guests, so I purchase one for my party. I also noticed several themed paper plates and cups to go with them, and I can’t get over that they match my table cloth perfectly, so I grab them and a few other condiments before leving.

In the two stories above, which company made more money off of me as the customer? Was it you the corn stand, or the grocery store?

Despite having the better products, the grocery store has made more revenue off of me as a customer. This is because I was able to purchase more products.

The purpose of this illustration is to point out the fact that having more products will lead to more sales. It is not to say that you don’t need quality products, you do. It’s also not to say that you should cast a wide net, making products for every niche, you don’t need to do that. But you do need to offer more products.An increase in products will result in an increase in revenue.

Unlike a grocery store, which has limited shelf space, your digital store, in this case teachers pay teachers, can hold unlimited amounts of products. Which gives you a great advantage.

How many products should I have?

The more the better. I don’t think that there is such a thing as too many.

How many products should I have to begin?

One. If you have one product to sell, put it on TpT and begin.

Just remember you can’t start selling on teachers pay teachers until you have a free product to give away. So technically, you need one product giveaway and one product to sell.

How much of my time should I dedicate to product creation?

If you are just getting started, you should dedicate the majority of your time to product creation.

This is because it’s not easy to get customers to your store. Thus, once they are on your TpT page you want to capitalize on the opportunity. So you want to have multiple options for them to make a purchase while they are in your store.

However, as your product catalog increases, you’re going to want to start redirecting your efforts towards getting traffic to your blog and converting them into buyers.

Is there such a thing as too many products?

As mentioned above, your digital store can hold a large amount of products. So there’s no reason to limit yourself to what you can sell.

That said, the more products in your store the harder it will be for customers to find the one that’s associated to the one that they’re currently looking at. For example, if I am selling adding integers task cards, it would be great for the teacher to also see my adding integers lesson plan. But if I have a lot of products they might not see it.

That’s why it’s important to cross link relevant products as well as create custom categories. Having a blog is also a great way to direct traffic to all of your relevant products. In the example above on adding integers, I could have a blog post teaching teachers great ways to deliver instruction on adding integers. That blog post could link to all of my resources. And all of my teachers pay teachers resource pages could link to the blog post.

How to Upload Products to Your Teachers Pay Teachers Store

What type of products should I be creating?

You need to create products that serve your niche and go together. That doesn’t mean that all products need to only work for your niche, or that all products need to be related, but focusing products that correlate will help you in your product creation journey

For example, let’s say I’m a social studies teacher, and I have a great activity to help students understand feudalism.

After I create the products, and upload it to teachers pay teachers, I should try to make another product that goes well with it. For example, I could create a PowerPoint presentation that teachers could use to teach students about feudalism, or about medieval European culture.

My next project could be a lesson plan on medieval European art. Or I could create a map. Or some type of activity to help teachers illustrate another aspect of medieval European culture.

Finally, after I created all of these, I could bundle them together. Bundles are a great way to increase revenue.

Last, but not Least…

My final strategy would be to create a blog post, teaching teachers some great strategies to help teachers better teach on medieval European culture. In that blog post, I would give several great strategies that provided my reader with valuable content. But I would also link to my product in case they were interested in making that purchase.