Digital Marketing for TpT Sellers - Amplify Your TpT Income

How do you get more people to your TpT store so that you can generate more sales?

You’ve made your TpT store and uploaded some amazing products, you might even be making some money. But you know that if more people were to find your resources, you could amplify your income.

But how?

How can you get more people to your store?

The answer is digital marketing

Digital marketing is promoting your products through online channels. And there are many. You’ve got websites, search engines (like Google), email, social media, YouTube, Pinterest, and more. It actually can become a bit overwhelming when you think about it.

However, it has to be done!

You simply must promote your store and resources online to generate more traffic.

To not do so, is to rely solely on Teachers Pay Teachers promoting your products, and search engines indexing them properly with high rankings.

Some People Make a Great Income on TpT without Digital Marketing

Yes, there are some people who do well without digital marketing. But, besides the fact that there aren’t a lot of those people, here are two things you should consider.

1 – Algorithm Changes

We’ve all seen the algorithms change on some of our favorite platforms. Facebook and Google have both undergone multiple algorithm changes that have caused many online entrepreneurs (like you and me) to lose considerable amounts of income.

Even TpT recently had an algorithm change that had a dramatic impact on many sellers. They rolled out a new ‘personalized search’ algorithm that significantly impacted a lot of full-time sellers (especially those who did not have good digital marketing and were solely relying on the old algorithm).

TpT Sellers created such an uproar over this new change, that Teachers Pay Teachers undid the algorithm and put the old one back. Only to reinstitute it just a few months later.

To learn more about the TpT algorithm change, watch this video.

If the TpT algorithm changes again – or if this change has impacted you, you better have a way to get people to your store or you could take a dramatic hit on your sales.

2 – It’s a Multiplication Problem

Think of your income using this formula: views x conversion rate

In other words, maybe you’re getting 1,000 views a month, and you have a 6% conversion rate, resulting in 60 sales each month.

By simply increasing the traffic to your TpT store, you can dramatically increase your sales without doing anything else.

In other words, if you were to grow from 1,000 views to 2,000 views per month, you could double your income!

What if doing just a few small things each month resulted in thousands of more customers visiting your products?

That could be hundreds or even thousands of extra dollars each month!

Why You Should be Digitally Marketing Your TpT Store

Digital marketing will get your potential customers to your TpT store.

There are two reasons you need to be participating in digital marketing, even if you already have good TpT sales numbers.

First, to protect yourself from anything funny happening on the TpT platform, like an algorithm change, your account being frozen, or the platform going under. All of which I hope don’t happen. But if they do, and they could, you’re prepared.

Second, you must be digitally marketing your products and your TpT store so that you will get more customers, and more of the right customers, visiting your store and buying your product.

In short, digital marketing will generate you more revenue and protect your future earnings from dilution or disappearance.

Opportunity Costs

We’ve talked about this in other blog posts and in some of my trainings. But it’s worth repeating. Your ideal customers are already hanging out on social media, scanning Pinterest, and doing internet searches for products just like yours.

And if you aren’t getting in front of them with your beautiful products that are just perfect for them, someone else will. And your ideal customers will give their money to someone else – instead of you even though you might have the better product.

Did you know

75% of Pinterest users say that they’re “always shopping.”
82% of shoppers found something on social media and purchased it on their phone.
Half of all social media users have made an impulsive buy while on the platform.
Email marketing generates around $40 for every $1 spent by the email marketer.

I could go on, but the stats speak volumes. You can increase your sales dramatically just by putting yourself in front of more people.

How to Market Digitally

Digital Marketing takes many different forms. Here are a few of the most popular and some strategies for each.

Email Marketing

Digital marketing’s most powerful tool is email marketing. Surveys show that the average email marketer will generate between $30 and $40 for every $1 spent on email marketing.

Email marketing is the best.

For starters, you own your list. Nobody can up and change an algorithm or boot you off of their platform, causing you to lose all of your hard work. Your list stays with you no matter what.

Most people check their email every day. So by showing up in someone’s inbox, you have direct access to them.

Email also allows customization. I can segment my email list by demographic, preferences, behavior, or action. In other words, I can email only a certain type of teacher (like grade level or subject matter) or I can email them based on an action they took with me – like visiting my store or my course, purchasing something, or reading some of my content.

Your list is all the people who are perfect for you. They signed up for your list, so they are your ideal customers. And, you can personalize what you send them. This means you can segment your list, customizing what messages go to what people based on what actions they’ve taken, their demographics, or a host of other variables.

If you haven’t started email marketing, you should download my email marketing starter kit.

If you want to amplify your email marketing, check out my course for TpT Sellers.

Social Media

The average person spends about 2.5 hours a day on social media!

Over 60% of the world uses social media. But the vast majority of the people on the planet who don’t spend their time on social media also don’t have access to the internet.

Furthermore, social media has a huge impact on our purchasing decisions. As mentioned above, many people make purchasing decisions either from social media or based on something they’ve seen on social media.

Nearly half of all US consumers said they’ve made a purchasing decision through social media, and 60% of them say that they’ll do it again! Close to $2 Billion in sales will occur through social media platforms.

You absolutely must be showing up on social media.

This is why all of the major brands have social media pages and regularly pump our social media content.

Besides all of that. Having a social media page is free!

What better way to attract new customers to your blog, email marketing, or TpT store? You don’t have to pay anything to participate, and all of your ideal customers are there. You just have to get their attention.

How to Begin on Social Media

Hopefully, you’re convinced that social media is a great way to get more customers. But how to begin? First, you must pick a platform. And the truth is, they’re all good. TicTok, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, do whatever works for you. If you are already on one, you should start there.

If you aren’t already participating in social media, or you’re looking for which one is the best, I am going to tell you that Facebook is King.

Facebook is the largest of all the platforms, it generates the most revenue (which means it will last the longest), it has the best ROI on ads, it’s the most used, and it’s the best performing. And it’s not even close. Plus, Facebook has groups, a unique place on the internet that’s curated with your ideal customers and the perfect place for you to establish yourself as an expert in your niche.

If you want to dig deeper into why Facebook is the best social media platform, read this article.

Once you’ve picked a social media platform, you need to create a page for your business and then start showing up regularly.

Showing up regularly means posting to your audience with valuable or entertaining content. Educate, inspire, motivate, create intrigue, make us laugh, or do something that will make your ideal customers want to follow you and continue to consume your content.

For a deep study on how the Facebook Algorithm works, download my Facebook Starter Kit, which is full of a few other goodies to help you grow organically on the platform.

Blogging

Blogging is a great way to cast a large net to gather your ideal customers.

Here’s an example of how you can use your blog to grow your business.

In the early 2010’s, River Pools and Spa in Warsaw, Virginia sold more fiberglass pools than any other store in America, despite it’s size and location. The owner attributed their success to content marketing.

The industry was traditionally dominated by large manufacturers. So the owners began focusing their online content on helping the consumers. They set out to answer every question a pool buyer might have, and create content around that. In doing so, most online searches for questions about a pool brought people to River Pools and Spa’s website. And the deeper into the content they went, the more they trusted the brand. Then, when it was time to make a buying decision, the consumer already knew who to go to.

You can do the same with your TpT store. Start answering questions and writing blogs around content related to your niche. How to teach something. What to do when (fill in the blank) happens. Resources for such-and-such strategy. If you can start generating content around the core questions your ideal customers have, and around the main things they are looking for when they are online, you will cast a wide net across the world wide web that your ideal customers will get caught in.

Your blog can add value, build trust, and draw people deeper into a digital relationship with your brand. Ideally, it will be getting them onto your email list where you will sell them your products, but your blog can also promote your goods and services as well.

Blog posts do better on the social media algorithms than TpT links do – meaning they will get greater reach, They also do better on Pinterest. And they allow you to do more things than your social media posts or TpT store can do – like have affiliate links, landing pages for your email opt-ins, or sales pages for your products.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Social media posts have a life of about 24 to 48 hours. Meaning after you post them, they do their job of getting people to notice you, hopefully, they’re helping get people to your email list or TpT store, and then they’re done. They reach no one after a few days. The same is true with email. But a blog is forever.

You can write one really good blog post and can continue to generate traffic and revenue for you for all of time.

If you would like help starting your blog, check out my course here.

Search Engine Optimization

One of the best things you can do for the products in your TpT store as well as your blogs is to optimize them to rank well on search engines like Google.

The BEST thing you can do to improve your SEO is to correctly and appropriately use keywords and phrases.

Think through the things your ideal customer will be typing into Google. Then think through different variations of that question or prompt.

For example, I doubt many people are going to Google and typing in “Pre-Algebra Teacher.” However, they might be looking for how to teach something in the next unit. So instead of trying to rank well for “Scientific Notation,” I might try to rank well for the following phrases

How to teach scientific notation
Lesson plan for scientific notation
In class game to help students learn scientific notation
Classroom activity for scientific notation
How to help my struggling students understand exponents
ESOL worksheets on scientific notation

These are just a few examples, obviously, the list could go on. But these are some long-tail phrases I might want to rank for.

Let’s pick the first one, “How to Teach Scientific Notation.”

By the way, at the time of this writing, if you go to Google and type this in, my blog post ranks #1. Click here to read the article.

Here are some things to do to help you rank high on Search Engines for your phrase

Use this phrase close to the beginning of the post (I use it in the title)
Use variations of your phrase in your writing
Use the phrase more than once in your writing, but naturally
Have good subheadings that also incorporate the phrase or a variation of it
Use images that have this terminology on the name of the file

There are other things to do when trying to get good SEO.

You also want to write clearly and in a natural tone. Your article should be at least 1,000 words with good spacing, headings, and images. You should also write in a way that helps your reader. And you should have internal and external links on your blog post.

To read my article on 5 Ways to Improve your SEO, click here.

YouTube and Podcasts

YouTube and Podcasts are not social media. They operate more like a Search Engine and should be viewed a lot like your blog. If you start your digital marketing on these platforms, your job is to create content that serves your audience well and is highly searchable.

As you create content on these platforms, your audience will develop that know, like, and trust factor and should go deeper into your content funnel, consuming more of it as they move closer towards making a purchasing decision.

The benefits of YouTube and podcasts is that they are much more intimate than a blog. Your audience is listening to your voice and possibly even seeing your face. They hear your tone, you’re in their ears. It magnifies the digital relationship.

If you have the time and energy to start to do consistent work on these platforms, you definitely should. There is a high ceiling.

Pinterest also is not quite social media, and should be viewed more as a search engine. This means it takes a while for your content to be properly indexed by the algorithms and for it to start generating traffic.

However, Pinterest has some more serious upsides than your typical search engine.

For starters, 75% of the 450 million active users on Pinterest say that they are “always shopping.”

97% of the top searches on the platform are ‘unbranded.’ Meaning the little guy has a much better chance on this platform than others.

And, my favorite Pinterest statistic, 80% of users say Pinterest makes them feel happy. It’s a positive platform that people enjoy (which might be why they spend so much money when on the site).

You should be making pins for your products, landing pages, and blog posts. Here are some tips.

Make sure you have a business account and are using rich pins
Use Keywords in the title, the description, the file name, and the text overlay
Don’t use Stock Images
Publish new content (no more pinning the same pin repeatedly)
Add text overlay (text over the image)
Idea pins are the new thing
Make multiple pins, with different images and layouts, for each blog post or TpT product
The Pinterest algorithm is a lot like the others, so create value or optimize for engagement and your pins will do well

Want more Digital Marketing Resources?

In this post, I’ve already given you several wonderful resources to help you on your journey. An Organic Facebook Growth Pack, an Email Marketing Starter Kit, and a link to my article on 5 Ways to Improve your SEO.

If you would like regular information, like what’s above, in your inbox every week (sometimes twice a week) you can hop on my email list. Not only will doing so give you more information on digital marketing and improving your TpT business, but you will get to see an example of email marketing taking place.

Want to Go Deeper?

If you want even more, I have several options for you.

I have courses on the following

I also have a book on Digital Marketing for TpT Sellers.

But my favorite way to provide support is to give all of these listed above to you, and allow you to meet weekly with me and other TpT sellers in a mastermind, in my membership called ‘The Traffic Lab.’

The traffic lab is a membership for TpT Sellers. We focus on digital marketing and product optimization. It has a private Facebook group, weekly virtual hangouts, regular trainings on the courses listed above, access to tons of bonuses like premade templates, and it has monthly challenges for an even extra income boost.

Check out the Traffic Lab, click here.

Check out the Traffic Lab

Digital Marketing for TpT Sellers