I also had a big project that I worked on for several days. Yay! So glad to finish that.
Yesterday, I watched a session about following the trends to keep your store current and profitable.
Today, I watched a session to help me understand how to better utilize all the data TPT gives us.
But I’m back!
Yes! Today, I’m returning to share the last of my takeaways from TPT Forward 2021.
Yesterday, I watched a session about following the trends to keep your store current and profitable.
The most important idea that I got from Cindy's session is to try to create trendy resources that can be easily rebranded or reused when the current event or trend is over. You might get a lot of sales for the one-time event, but if the product is not something people can use at any other time, is it ultimately worth all the time and effort that will go into creating, posting, and marketing?
Side note, I don't currently do any marketing.
I appreciated that Cindy shared how she decides what's trendy to make products for or to include in products. I'm not sure that I want to be a trendy seller, chasing all the current events and trends, but I will definitely keep her sources for trends in mind, like if I'm struggling to think of a theme for some resource.
Personally, I tend to make my resources based off of my own classroom needs. I make it for myself. Then, if I think it's worthy, I ready it for other people.
Great session, though!
Today, I watched a session to help me understand how to better utilize all the data TPT gives us.
Tammy presented the idea of navigating our data like a road trip, which was super cute and clever. If you remember, I learned and wrote about conversion rates in this first #TPTForward2021 post and learned that the average online conversion rate was 2-4%. I was flying high as a kite after checking my product statistics.
Well...
Tammy clarified that the average conversion rate for TPT was more like 5-8%. In fact, anything from 10-12% might be more profitable with a small price bump. Interesting! Anything less than 5% might need some kind of rigor or creative boost.
I loved learning about the profit hierarchy. I wasn't familiar with that. Here's the gist... The bottom is the seasonal and low-ticket items. These are your below-average priced products. The middle is the evergreen or mid-ticket items. They are your average priced products. The top is the high-ticket items. These products are above average in their pricing. More expensive items are your bundles. Product lines are the most expensive.
I don't have very many bundles, and I have zero product lines. Tammy suggested have some of each in your store. Honestly, I'm not sure that I'm interested in creating any product lines.
Well, I take that back. I had brainstormed one last summer. I never went through with creating it, because I'm not interested in pushing through to the end when I will (inevitably) lose motivation to create ANOTHER version of it over a different topic.
LOL! It's still in my idea book, just in case.
Another big takeaway was the reminder that you should not be analyzing product data for several months after posting a new product OR before it receives 400 page views. It's easy to get excited when something fairly new in my store catches its first fish. You know, wow, they liked my idea!
I did some work looking at my data after I was done watching the session. I downloaded it and used Tammy's formulas for finding the optimization rate. I haven't had a moment to really analyze all my color coding, though.
I think the conversion rate is most important. If something is below average in conversions, I'll look at the optimization rates to see if I can pinpoint what's wrong. I think I might even just pull the older stuff out that isn't really selling anymore (if there's no way to refurbish it into something useful and appealing).
This was a good session!
I hope you enjoyed my series of reflections from the virtual conference this year. If you attended, I wonder if you have anything you would add to any of my posts. I'd love to hear from you.
My goal is to share my Reading Symposium thoughts next week. There were some really good nuggets there!
Enjoy the rest of THIS week!
