TpT Journey Part 2 – Keeping Momentum and Stamina Strong

This is the second of three posts in this series. If you haven’t yet read the first post, you can find it here. It is all about how I got my start on TpT (and rank in the 90th percentile of sellers) and what advice I have for new sellers. This post discusses how to keep your TpT shop going strong once you are in the thick of it. The third post is all about expansion and the importance of not being stagnant. 

Getting your shop started is a major accomplishment all on its own. You have to name it, set up payments, think up, create, design, and post lesson after lesson… Usually, sellers are ALSO full-time teachers! Whew!

Once you get it up and running though, there is no guarantee the sales will just start rolling in. Wouldn’t that be nice? In reality, you need to let the world know you exist. How you go about this will depend on what you sell and who your audience is. 

Advice #1 – Efficiency

In my case, I write short stories with correlating lessons for 5th – 9th grades. I know my my audience is made up of busy teachers and tween/teen students. I use YouTube to post trailers at a better quality than TpT. Using Canva, I create a horizontal video (useful for YouTube and as the preview option in TpT) and use the resize tool to make it vertical as well (great for YouTube Shorts, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest).

Finding these time-saving tools helps me keep my stamina up because going all-in and treating this as a business is A LOT of work. Since incorporating video (and not just static images) I have seen a steady increase in my social media engagement. That is my first tip for keeping yourself going when you start getting bogged down by all the tasks associated with being a TpT seller – EFFICIENCY. Find and use all the time-saving tools you can!

Advice #2 – Tracking

My second tip is something I only recently discovered and haven’t even fully grasped yet. This is a tool that has probably been around for a while, I don’t know, but is a game changer! It is the TpT URL Builder.

Now, I am fairly tech-savvy. I have created decent websites, tried new platforms, etc. When I saw this button in the Traffic section of my TpT dashboard, I clicked it to see what would happen. Story of my life, “What the hell, I’ll give it a try.”

Well, in this instance, that was a great decision! I discovered that I can create links to my TpT products and be able to know from where that link was clicked. 

For example, I list linked products in my TpT descriptions for every product, also within sold products, and in blog posts on my website (like this one). Now, using the URL builder, I can see where customers are clicking from. 

In this example, YouTube Shorts provided eleven views to my TpT shop while my website provided five views. I can see which specific YouTube Shorts it was as well. So how does knowing all of this help my stamina???

I have only started to scratch the surface of what can be done with link tracking. There are entire companies out there that you can pay monthly and be able to track, in amazing detail, what gets clicked where, when, and by whom. This information is instrumental to your sanity! For now, I use the Google URL builder for free.

I estimate that after a year of doing this consistently, I will have narrowed down what avenues are the most beneficial to my earnings and conversion rates. Simply put, I will know where to focus my efforts so that I am as efficient and successful as possible. So, my second tip is – TRACKING

Advice #3 – Organization

Lastly, I would have to say that my third tip to avoid losing your momentum as a TpTpreneur is to get ORGANIZED. 

Imagine you have your family, extended family, and the entire neighborhood coming over for a dinner party. You can’t cook in a messy kitchen, so you clean it first. As you cook, it starts getting messy again… You have to take the time to put away ingredients you are done with, tools you aren’t using… Plus you have to make sure everything goes in and out of the oven at the right times. Running a successful TpT shop is no different. You need to know what to design and when to sell it. 

I have a Valentine’s Day activity that is super cute, but I obviously don’t sell it in June. So why would I post it in June? I wouldn’t. No one will be searching for it in June. Instead, in June, I should be posting summer activities and even back-to-school products because many teachers are in planning mode. Additionally, I “clean house” by reviewing what sells and what doesn’t, what needs updated covers, should any prices be changed… Yada, yada, yada.

I have found that products that are good year-round (evergreen) sell great for me and sales are consistent. Seasonal products (Valentine’s Day, Earth Day…) sell okay and only for maybe two weeks before the season it is made for. Some sellers, especially for younger grades, probably see better sales there than I do. Regardless of what you sell and when, good housekeeping and organization help make the entire process not only easier but more efficient (there’s that word again…). 

And the Results are in…

As I have been expanding my sales avenues (more on that in the next post) I have been relieved that I am as organized as I am. Even still, the sheer amount of files, places to upload, etc. is overwhelming. TpT has product images, a preview, the digital file (that also goes into TpT Easel) which also includes Google Slides, which I used Canva to create, is all stored in Canva, but also on my computer, but also in my Google Drive… Then it all has to be posted to TpT, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube… It is exhausting if you aren’t organized, are running yourself ragged on tools that aren’t efficient, and you don’t even know what is working best to drive traffic to your store. I’m amazed more people don’t burn out.

This (image below) is what happens when you start tracking your links and getting yourself onto social media…Efficiency allows you to increase your productivity but also allows you to take the time to invest in marketing.

The blue are the views so far for 2024, the green is last year. Only 3 and a half months into 2024 and I’m already at half of the views I got during all of 2023. If this keeps up, as I expect it to, I will have quadrupled my views from last year to this year. (Again, math is not my thing, “quadrupled” is an estimate.) 

So, to wrap it up – efficiency, efficiency, efficiency – that is the key to maintaining your stamina and momentum as a TpTpreneur. What do you do when you have your rhythm going strong and you want to take the next step? You expand. For more on that, check out the third and final post of this series.