Nichola Lacey (nwilkin) is one of our gold tier authors who has given advice on using Tes tools at the authors train authors live events in October 2018 and January 2019. Here we revisit some of her guidance in the recording of our live webinar from May 2019.
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Authors train authors webinar: Using Tes tools with Nichola Lacey.
Searching for a specific piece of advice? Find a breakdown of the topics covered in the webinar below:
1:00 - Introduction
2:15 - Pricing resources (+ extra comments on pricing at 9:00)
4:48 - Free resources
6:35 - Creating effective titles for resources
9:50 - Targeting specific markets
10:44 - Creating effective resource descriptions
13:10 - Cover and preview images:
What's the difference?
Best practice
How to add
Video previews
21:38 - Bundles
What are they?
Pricing
How to create
25:05 - Discounts & sales.
26:44 - Q&A
Topics covered in Q&A:
27:26 - Reviews
28:22 - Adding terms and conditions to your resources/licenses
29:52 - Sourcing images for your resources
30:45 - Downloads vs purchases
31:30 - Should you start off by sharing just free resources?
33:10 - Expanding to a US store
34:45 - Seasonal resources
35:53 - Copyright
39:08 - Selling a niche subject
40:52 - Benefit of video previews
Written summary
Free vs Premium Resources
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Make sure a portion of your shop offers free resources, 10-25% of your resources is a sensible amount. This gives buyers a taster of your style and quality so that they can make an informed decision to purchase your resources. If you give away substantial resources and a range of different types, buyers are more likely to spend more on your products.
Pricing
- High priced resources do sell, especially when buyers have had a free taster and when resources provide entire modules of content for certain exam boards. Don’t be afraid to charge what a resource is worth.
Bundles
- Group resources together if they are on a similar topic and serve a similar purpose (for example starters or homeworks). Make sure the price you charge is an attractive saving over the combined price of the individual items.
- Resources can go in more than one bundle. Bundling bundles together for further savings can create substantial good value packages.
- Make resources specifically with bundles in mind and use fresh cover images for the bundle packages.
Raising your place in the page rankings
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Titles – keep titles short and focus on the most important words that people will search for. Avoid punctuation and don’t repeat words – this isn’t how people search for terms!
- Descriptions – Use good spelling and grammar, again think about the search terms people might be using. Give a clear outline of what your resource contains and give contents lists if there’s multiple items.
Converting views to sales
- Branding is important and it's worth thinking like a salesperson - think about how your cover image could be more attractive and informative. All it need to do is make a person click and then they’ll read your description.
- Make your preview images clear and informative to help show off your resource.
- Tagging your resource appropriately will help buyers to it when browsing the site.
Promoting on Tes
- Creating discount sales is a good way to push particular resources. The sale doesn’t need to include all your items, it just needs to be a select few.
- 'Hashtag sales' are a good way to advertise. This means adding a unique hashtag to each of your sale items’ descriptions and then performing a search on Tes for this hashtag. Then when you create advertising you can use the hashtag and hyperlink it to the Tes search page on social media to let people know about your sale!
This is just a taster of the advice our experienced authors have to offer at the Authors Train Authors events. If you found this useful, keep an eye out for details of upcoming events in your monthly Author Handbook email.
Quick Links
We intend to host more webinars following our future live events. Keep an eye on our announcements page and your fortnightly roundup email for news on upcoming live events and webinars in our authors train authors series.