Hey TPT sellers ready to see growth in your business? You’re in the right place. Welcome to the Savvy Teacher Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle. And I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sale. Let’s get started y’all.
Hey, y’all, thank you so much for joining me for today’s episode. As a TPT. Seller, we sometimes wonder if it’s time to update products that have been in our store for a while. So today’s episode is all about the three signs that you need to update your product ASAP.
Let’s dive right in. The first sign that you need to update your TPT product is if your product does not have a preview. As TPT is changing their search algorithm they actually announced a couple of weeks back that products with a preview will show up higher in search results than products without one.
This means every paid product in your store needs to have a preview, even if it’s just a one page activity. Now TPT will still let you publish a product without one. But because they are factoring this into the search algorithm. In my eyes, this is no longer an option for your store, you absolutely need a preview on every single product.
Now when it comes to previews, I am absolutely loving shifting my own product previews to a widescreen presentation size. And the reason for this is because the way that the previews are displayed on TPT, if you use a portrait orientation or a square shape, you’re buyers are only going to be able to see the top half or the top third of the preview page at a time. And often what this means is that they can’t see the entire image that you’ve put on the page, or they have to scroll down to read the rest of the text.
And that is just not a great buyer experience. So I recommend using a widescreen presentation size, because then the entire slide is showing on the preview window at one time. And if you’re wondering how this looks on mobile, it actually works out perfectly fine on mobile as well, because it will show them multiple pages on the screen at once.
Personally, I create my previews in Canva. And so I just use their presentation size design, when I am creating those. In your preview, make sure that you’re showing off your product, this is a really good chance for you to give buyers a deeper look at what is in the product that they’re about to purchase. And to show and tell what they’re going to be getting.
The description is just our spot to be able to tell them what’s included. And so many times it would be easier for buyers to understand the things that are included if they could see images alongside that information. So don’t be afraid to repeat parts of the product description in your previews, it really can help teachers to imagine using the resource and understand what you’re saying in the description. Not to mention buyers are very visual, so showing rather than just telling can make a huge impact.
Alright, Sign number two, that it is time to update your TPT product is if there is Chevron on the cover. Okay, I’m just kidding, kind of, there might still be a time when it’s okay to have a little chevron in the background of something. But in general, we all know that Chevron used to be super popular, and now it is outdated. If your product looks completely outdated, and it’s not converting well anymore, then it might be time to freshen it up.
If you cringe every time you get a sale notification, it might be time to freshen up this product. Now when you do this, your product content is probably already great. And all you really need to do is freshen up the style that you are using so that it fits with what people are using currently. My advice is when you are making these updates, try instead of leaning into current trends, try to choose a style for the product itself that is going to be timeless.
So that you don’t have to come back and make a huge update to your product again in a year or two to try and constantly keep up with current trends. The exception to this of course would be things like classroom decor where the trend is what you’re selling. But for regular classroom products that don’t need to be trendy. I would encourage you to choose a timeless style when you’re making your update to the product content so that you don’t have to keep coming back and updating it over time.
The good news is what is currently trending is pretty simple design styles. And that means that that will likely continue to be trending for a long time. And if you’re using those now, they will look timeless. If you want to incorporate some current trends, then you can always do that with your cover and your thumbnail images, that’s a great place to keep things trendy without having to go through and update your entire product.
Personally, I know that I update my covers and my thumbnails far more frequently than I update the content of the product inside. And the reason I’m able to do that is because I’ve set the content up inside, so that it is timeless and it will work no matter what the trends are. And then I’m able to make my covers match what’s currently trending and popular.
Now, Sign number three, that you might need to update your TPT product is if your sales of a product have decreased. So if you have a product that used to be a best seller, and it no longer is selling well, then it might be time to take a look at making some updates to the content itself. I say this currently in October of 2022, with a caveat that over the last few weeks TPT has been doing some search algorithm testing. And that has kind of jumbled all of our sales up a little bit. We’re seeing sales of older products that hadn’t been selling and some of our best sellers are dropping off a little.
So until that sort of settles down, I would look at more historical data, I would go back prior to August of 2022. And look at the little bit older data before those changes were in play. If you had a product that was selling amazingly well in 2014, or 2015, and it’s just not selling anymore, give it an objective look. See if the content is still relevant. It may be that the content just isn’t relevant anymore, or teachers just aren’t using this type of product anymore. And if that’s the case, then you can either leave it in your store if it’s still selling a little or you could deactivate it if you don’t want it there anymore.
But if the content is still relevant, then it’s time to give your product a glow up. Look at what you can do to make your product more appealing to buyers today. That might mean adding a digital version. Or it might mean adding a few additional elements like rubrics and answer keys and things. Maybe you just need to beef up the actual activity a little bit and provide more options for teachers. Or it could be that you just need to update the style of it. Either way, if your sales have decreased over time, that is a big hint that it is time to go in and make some updates to your product.
To recap, your three signs that you need to update your TPT product right now are if it has a missing preview, and I would say this is your top priority as of right now. If it is using some trends that have gotten out of date, and it just no longer looks current, then you would want to take a look at updating it. And your third sign is that your sales have decreased.
If you’re missing a preview if you have outdated trends in your product or if your sales are decreasing. You want to go in and take a look at that product and make some updates so that you can get it to start selling again.
Now your action step for today’s episode is to identify at least one product that needs updating and work on updating it. I would love for you to share it with me on Instagram if you do. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you loved these quick tips for when to update your TPT product, make sure you click subscribe and leave a rating and review on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you soon. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please share it with another teacher seller who would also find it helpful. For more resources on Growing Your TPT business. Head to kristendoyle.co/tpt. Talk to you soon.
