6 Tips to Showcase Your TPT Products Using Stock Photos

Kirsten 0:00

it's time for a CTP q&a. This question comes from Kiana she asks, How do you choose the colors and branding style for your TPT store. So just to recap what a branding style is. A store brand style is the overall theme and look of your TPT store. It's what your ideal teacher customers see when they click on and view your resources. And it's what they will hopefully add to their wish lists and by there's three common TPT store styles that I've noticed and I've come up with names for them. The first one is the minimalist. These are for teachers who are like really simple like to create quality resources without the extra bells and whistles. Their titles and pictures are very clean with a lot of whitespace they're straight to the point and they showcase what a potential buyer is looking for. The scroll stopper loves bright and bold things. They can't get enough of eye catching colors, fonts clipart and they also you know enjoy lots of bright product covers with a lot of color. I would consider my store to be a scroll stopper just because I use a lot of rainbow it's bright, it's catchy. It's a lot of bold fonts that pop. Then the third brand style would be the trendsetter where you have trendy designs and patterns and fonts. Those 70s Groovy type hues where it's pink and yellow and blue and brown. And that kind of thing. That's what I kind of see as a trendsetter and it always changes but these are people who know what's in and out in the education world and they love to capitalize it they see everything that's trending and they add it to their store as quickly as possible. So that's what I would say a trendsetter brand style is and so thinking about which brand style you might fit in, can kind of guide you what colors you can select. You can find a variety of colors in a variety of different places. But to you know kind of put together a nice color palette there's places that can inspire you Pinterest is of course a really great one where you just kind of look up a word you can just type a keyword that you're looking for like trendy or you know boho or 70s or you know whatever keyword describes your brand or your business and you might find some really cool colors and you can pick and choose from that you could also get inspiration from other TPT stores. Obviously we do not want to copy every single color palette in a store. But you know just take note of the TPT stores that you do gravitate toward and you do like and you feel like you do have a similar brand style to them. You can kind of pick and choose which colors you know from a variety of different places to create your own unique spin for your own unique brand. And then another place of inspiration is just your personal preferences which which colors do you prefer? My favorite color is turquoise. So of course one of my brand colors is going to be turquoise but my primary color is a hot pink, which isn't necessarily my favorite favorite color, but it's something to me that pops out and stands out. And then places of inspiration. Another place would be what you believe will attract your ideal teacher customer. Don't pick colors, though, that you yourself don't really gravitate toward. But also at the same time you want to make sure you're the colors you do pick. If it's high school, make sure that you're not picking fonts or brand styles that are really cute. See letters and little tiny clipart kids and stuff like that. Well that's it for the CTP q&a. If you have a burning question of TPT branding, product listings marketing or life in general submit it at the forum provided in the link in the show notes or on the blog. I would love to potentially have your question featured on the podcast with an answer for me and you never know someone might have the same question you may be thinking.

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hi, guys, it's Kiersten from the southern teach. Today, we're going to talk about six tips to showcase your TPT products using stock photos. So this week, we're talking about tips, if you are actually utilizing one of these platforms, on showcasing your TPT products with stock photos, because there are definitely some right ways to go about using mockups. And there are some not so right ways. So I just wanted to talk about what I've learned and what might benefit you. I think it's extremely important to capture the attention of a potential customer when you're selling resources on TPT. But what's even more important is that potential customers can take a preview and see exactly what they would be buying. And while printing out and taking photographs of your resource in action can help solve this problem. Sometimes creating mock ups if your products using stock photos is another great way to show off your resources if you don't have the time or resources to print everything out and take pictures.

So let's go into the six tips. The first tip, find the right photo that fits your brand. be purposeful with the photos that you choose. Try not to add too many photos that aren't matching. Sometimes it helps to have a Pinterest board that relates to your brand. And putting in photos in that board that inspire you. Make sure you're choosing photos that are similar to the style on your Pinterest mood board. So when you're going into Canva, you already have your Pinterest mood board of what type of photos you're looking for, you can find if you're looking for let's say you're looking for school supplies for us type in school supplies in Canva, you're looking for specific photos that look like your Pinterest mood board. And that kind of keeps that on brands will look. So you're not going into too many different avenues or styles.

The second tip is that dimensions make a difference dimensions are so important. You want to make sure that the pictures that you use are proportional. If it's not resized properly, it will end up looking too wide or distorted. So make sure that whenever you're resizing a photo for a mock up, I always love to use the corners to resize so that the pixel size proportions stay the same.

The third tip is to save your products as a PNG file for an easy overlay and a high quality style for every TPT product that you offer. Save the file as PNG files in addition to your PowerPoint file. So for example, for all of my resources, I create them in PowerPoint. So I'll save it as a PowerPoint file. But additionally, I will export it as PNG files. And sometimes depending on the bandwidth of the photo, or the screenshot, I will also save it as a JPEG file that's more related to thumbnails and product covers. Because sometimes, if the photo is too high quality it's going to be it's going to reach the limit whenever you're uploading that product cover a thumbnail. So that's where I would look at saving as a JPEG in addition to a PNG file, but definitely for your actual resources that you're going to be screenshotting you save them as PNG files, and you can easily overlay any screenshot of your resources on to social media graphics and previews and thumbnails.

The fourth tip, don't give too much away. Overlapping helps when showcasing your product in a preview on TPT, show them what they're going to be getting, but don't give too much away. One way to sidestep this issue is to overlap your products, so that it'll give potential customers an idea of what the resource entails, while protecting the integrity of your hard work. You can also put a watermark, so you can just put preview, just a text box on PowerPoint, and then overlay that on top, so that when you're saving it and uploading it as a preview, it's not going to be as easy to screenshot it, take it and make it their own for free. So you can either overlap on top the different pages, or you can put preview on top or the name of your store on top.

The fifth tip, be precise, and zoom in for the perfect fit. Have you ever noticed a mock up that looks a little off? I've seen that plenty of times, and I'm sure you have as well. Maybe you've seen some of the pages off the tablet where it's been, you can see that it's clearly been stretched too thin. Precision is key when creating a mock up. You want your product to look as realistic as possible. If it's not overlaying on in the right way. Sometimes zooming in can do the trick. So sometimes it's really hard to get it exactly where you want it. Zooming in can help that go a little bit better.

And it's kind of nice to the sixth tip. Don't overdo it. While mock ups are a great asset to your business and can be a great time saver, you should still try to find the time to show real photographs of your products, there's still a clear difference in real life and realistic looking balance is important. So just keep that in mind.

So I'm gonna just sum up everything the six tips to showcase your TPT products using stock photos. Number one, find the right photo that fits your brand. Number two dimensions make a difference. Number three, save your products as a PNG file for easy overlay and for a high quality style. Number four, don't give too much away. Overlapping helps. Number five, be precise and zoom in for the perfect fit. And number six, don't overdo it.

All right, guys, here is your action tip for today. Hopefully, you have an idea of the type of stock photos that you want to incorporate in your business. But if not, definitely create a Pinterest mood board that relates to your brand. Pick photos that remind you of the brand values and personality traits that describe your business and put it all together put your favorite photos that you love. One thing to make sure is even if you see the perfect photo on Pinterest, you don't want to save that image and upload it if it's not allowed. So make sure to read the Terms of Use. For that author, you can maybe go and ask for permission. But definitely don't use those photos in your actual store and your social media or checking out Pexels or Canva or even purchasing a membership on sidekicks Studio can alleviate that problem. So that's one thing to make sure not to do is to copy if it's not allowed. If you already have an idea of what the stock photos you want to incorporate will look like. The next thing I want you to do is to find a photo that you like, and try to see what you can do to overlay it to make a mock up image with your resource on top or maybe even a template or stock photo that you want to use for your Instagram or Facebook. I highly encourage you sometime this week to make your own mock up. You'll see what I mean when I say how much more visually appealing it looks. All right. Well, that's it for today. I hope you have an amazing day.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next step. sewed for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day