How To Use Thumbnails To Sell Your TPT Resources

Hey teacherpreneur,

If you want to increase your sales on TPT, you need to ensure that your product listings are top notch. So let’s talk about how to use thumbnails to sell your TPT resources!

TPT is all about the visuals (which are the first things that a buyer looks at). Thumbnails are the three pictures that you can upload to TPT.

If the buyer doesn’t like the look of your thumbnails, they may move on and look at someone else’s product. So…

You MUST use all three thumbnails and you MUST use them effectively. Here’s why.

This is the age of instant gratification. The human attention span is pretty short nowadays. This makes marketing on TPT a difficult challenge.

How do you capture a buyer’s interest and keep it, when there are hundreds of other products to look at? We want to make our listings good enough that we can hold a buyer’s attention (long enough that they buy).

There is a psychological approach to selling online. You need strategies to entice buyers to purchase your products. Effective thumbnail images not only provide a tangible sense of what your product looks like, they also tell your buyer how the product can be used or how it can improve their lesson planning.

Both visuals and text descriptions are important, but visuals have a stronger sway in an online marketplace like TPT. The visual element of your product listing is crucial, so you need to make the most of your thumbnail images.

Here are some things you need to know about thumbnails –

Product photography is a game changer. I strongly encourage you to take photos of your product in-action. Print, color, and fill in your worksheets. Trust me.

If you are going to use screenshots, less is more. Use one or two that are big and easy to see. There’s no value in cramming in 20 screenshots that no-one can decipher!

You can add some text if you wish, but remember – that’s what descriptions are for. Thumbnails are meant to be visual.

You don’t need to watermark your thumbnails or write ‘preview’ on them. TPT intentionally gives our thumbnails a reduced resolution to prevent theft.

I try to use product photography on my first thumbnail. This shows what my product will look like in a teacher’s classroom. It is especially valuable for crafts. I tend to use screenshots for my other two thumbnails.

If you want explicit tutorials for how to make TPT covers and thumbnails, check out my course The Terrific Teacherpreneur here.

I hope you’ve found this post about how to use thumbnails to sell your TPT resources helpful!

P.S If you’re looking for tips on previews, read my blog post here.