The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
Fix Your Product Descriptions & Make More Sales On TPT!
Is your TPT product description turning potential buyers away? As teachers scroll through countless resources, your description is often the final deciding factor before they hit "add to cart." In this episode, I reveal the secrets to crafting product descriptions that actually convert browsers into buyers.
Drawing from my nine years of TPT selling experience (including outearning my teaching salary), I take you behind the scenes to show exactly how I transform lackluster product descriptions into powerful sales tools. You'll watch as I audit two real product descriptions from the Rebranded Teacher community, applying my plug-and-play templates and strategic ChatGPT prompts to dramatically improve their effectiveness.
The transformation process reveals common mistakes sellers make: creating non-skimmable walls of text, including distracting elements that pull focus from purchasing, and failing to highlight their resource's unique selling points. I demonstrate how proper formatting with strategic bolding, bullet points, and concise paragraphs makes your description instantly more appealing to busy teachers who rarely read every word.
You'll learn my exact framework for effective descriptions: starting with an attention-grabbing snippet containing key search terms, followed by a brief product overview highlighting benefits (not just features), a clearly formatted "what's included" section, highlighted selling points, usage suggestions, and a compelling call to action. I also share when and how to include relevant upsells without distracting from the primary purchase.
Whether you're a new seller struggling with your first descriptions or an established creator looking to optimize your listings, this episode provides actionable strategies to immediately implement in your TPT store. Grab my free product description templates and start transforming your listings into conversion machines today!
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Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher, author and seller on Teachers Pay Teachers, and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Do you wanna know the last thing your buyer looks at before they decide whether or not to purchase your TPT product? It's the product description. I mean, maybe they look at the price right before they hit that button, but the last deciding factor is, generally speaking, your product description. So my question to you is is your TPT product description causing buyers to want to add to cart or is it turning them away? That's what we're going to talk about in today's podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be auditing two product descriptions, using my plug and play product description templates and a little bit of help from chat GPT to help zhuzh up a couple of product descriptions from people within the rebranded teacher community. If you don't know me, hi, I'm Lauren Fulton. I have been selling on Teachers Pay Teachers for nine years now, and I left the classroom back in 2019 to work on TPT full-time after outrunning my teaching salary, and I never looked back and I'm sharing some of my top tips in this video for creating a winning or a selling product description. Let's go ahead and get started. I'm going to share my screen with you guys, so if you're listening via podcast, I'm going to try to talk you through what I'm seeing on my screen and some of the problems that I'm seeing with the product descriptions that were submitted. But I do highly recommend that you go check out the YouTube videos that you can see exactly what I'm talking about. You can kind of follow along step by step, but you can walk away with some really great information, even if you're listening via podcast. Okay, so let's get started.
Speaker 1:This very first one came from one of our RTA members and she said I want you to look at this one because I know it needs some work, and I think that this is a really great example of what a lot of product descriptions look like for new sellers, where there's a lot going on. There's a lot of paragraphs, a lot of information, maybe even some confusion about what all to include. So this TPT seller has three paragraphs about the resource, no bulleted lists, no formatting whatsoever, and the vast majority of their product description is actually taken up with information on how to get TPT credits on future purchases by leaving reviews, giving them a reason to follow their store, leaving some contact information like how to reach them via email, as well as links to their Instagram, facebook and website. So here's what I'm going to say. First of all, one of the big things that we really want to focus on whenever we are writing a product description is we want our product description to be skimmable. This is super, super important, which means that we want the buyer to be able to just kind of scroll through and read as they're scrolling, to be able to pick up based on the formatting that we're giving them, to be able to pick up on the most important pieces of information that we want them to know about our product. You are going to have buyers who are going to read the entire product description because it's just how they are by nature. They really want to find all the facts and they want to know all of the information before they purchase. But the vast majority of people who are purchasing like a $3 resource which is, in this case, the resource is $3, they don't need to read paragraphs and paragraphs of information in order to know whether or not they want to purchase. In fact, most of the time they have a pretty good idea of whether or not they want to purchase after looking at the preview and they're just kind of looking at the product description and maybe to get some more specific answers. Or maybe they're more of a linguistic learner versus a visual learner and it's easier for them to kind of read everything than it is for them to kind of take the information in visually. So with this product description, one of the first things that I would recommend would be to get rid of the how to like customer tips, this customer tip section that she has, like how to get TPT credit on future purchases, the call to action to follow the store, purchasing the product and feedback and all the links and all that stuff down at the bottom. Honestly, it's kind of a distraction and it gives them an opportunity to focus or think about something else. So I know that we really want and we love the idea of customers leaving feedback, but we don't want them to leave feedback right now.
Speaker 1:When I'm writing my product description and when I'm designing my product preview, I really want to think about what do I want the buyer to do right now. Right now, I want the buyer to purchase this product. This is not to say that there are no exceptions, and you should never put a link in your product description. That's not it at all. What I'm simply asking you to think about is what do you want the buyer to do and then give them only the opportunity to do that thing? So for me personally, I only want them to purchase the product that they are looking at or purchase another product from my store instead. So it's okay with me if there's a link to another related resource or even an upsell to a bundle, but I don't want to send them off to go think about, like, oh you know what, this $3 resource? I bet I could go leave some reviews and come back and purchase this product, because chances are, once they leave, they're not going to remember to come back. So I really want them to focus specifically on this product and this product only.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I want to do is I really want to clean up this formatting. I want to make it visually easy for the buyer to take in the information that they need to know in order to make an informed purchasing decision. So what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to use this template. So I've created five plug and play TPT product description templates. You can get these for free they're absolutely free and I'm going to use this in conjunction with a chat GPT prompt that I have at the very end. So there are four templates in this. There's one for a TPT product description for an activity, and this covers like a huge majority of resources.
Speaker 1:Both of the resources that we're looking at today would fall under the category of activity, at least in my mind. They would Task cards, mazes, escape rooms, any type of resource that is kind of supplemental and is used for reasons other than, like, direct instruction. I would generally categorize that as an activity. Okay, this could also work for worksheets. You would just want to maybe change anything in here that says activity over to worksheets.
Speaker 1:So the next template is a product description for notes, lessons, for curriculum. So I found that between like an activity versus guided instruction or any kind of instruction, teachers are a little bit more specific when it comes to notes, lessons, curriculum. They want to know exactly what it covers, exactly what skills are covered, what's going to be taught and how it's going to be taught, and it's a little bit different versus like a supplemental resource or activity, because, generally speaking, they're introducing that concept or that skill to their students for the first time, and so they're going to be a little bit more particular and want a little bit more detail as to how that's going to be introduced and what exactly their students are going to be exposed to within that lesson. So I created a different template for that. There's also a product description template for a bundle and a product description template for teacher centered, or a product description template for teacher-centered or a TPT seller resource, and then finally, at the very end, there is a chat GPT prompt that can help you use any of these, and that's what we're gonna use now. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go over down to number five, I'm gonna copy and paste this chat GPT prompt and I'm gonna create a new document. So this paste this chat GPT prompt and I'm going to create a new document. So this is my chat GPT prompt and it wants me to answer very specific pieces of information before I can plug and play the template.
Speaker 1:So first the product type so this is an around the room activity where students, and I'm going to give it as much information as I possibly can find a picture of a community helper around the room and write the name of the community helper that they find and or the name of the helper and a brief sentence about them. So one of the other things that I found on this product description is that the product description itself says kindergarten through second or third grade, but then it's tagged for pre-K through second. I'm going to go ahead and say kindergarten through second and third grade. That's who it's for. That makes a little bit more sense to me over say pre-K through second. So I'm going to put that here. And you do want to make sure, like when you're writing your product descriptions, that the information that you're writing matches what you have tagged Like. You definitely do want to do that. So I'm going to say kindergarten through third grade.
Speaker 1:Community helpers writing activity. Top three selling points. So there were a couple of selling points. First, I noticed that now this is not my product so I might not get this exactly right, but from reading the product description and taking a look at the preview, I noticed that there were at least two differentiated options for student recording. One was choose a word and write a sentence, and then one was like write the word, draw a picture of the word and then write a sentence using the word. One where the students just record the words Hang on the community helper, the community helper Again, I'm giving it as much information as I possibly can and one option where the students have to write a sentence for each community helper plus draw a picture.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then another selling point that I noticed was that this write the room activity uses real pictures, not clip art. Uses real pictures of community helpers, not clip art, to help students be more familiar with how the community helpers actually look in real life, so they aren't confused if they were afraid in real life. Okay, so I'm just making a little guesswork here saying I don't know this to be sure for a fact, but my thought process is that the reason that the real pictures are a seller is that you know there's a difference between how a fireman looks on a piece of clip art versus how a fireman actually looks in real life, and we don't want students to be scared. We want them to have a real life picture of what a fireman should look like, or a police officer would look like, for example, or a nurse. So I'm telling chat GPT, the why behind it. So I'm giving it real answers. Now, even if I were not to use ChatGPT, this is still something that I want a teacher to consider and think about, because I can say, hey, it includes real pictures, and some of them may be like oh yes, this is perfect, this is exactly what I was looking for. If they were to really stop and think about it, they would know why it has real pictures and the benefits for that. But if they're just skimming, they may not connect the dots together themselves. So we really want to connect the dots for the buyer, and then, finally, we could say something like perfect for a variety of learners within the same classroom can use the different student recording options to challenge accelerated learners while meeting the needs of students who may not be ready for advanced writing activities.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's included in the download? So 12 vocabulary cards, 12 real picture vocabulary cards, two recording sheet options and an I can statement card. Okay, so for this, what I'm going to do is I'm going to copy and paste. I'm just going to assume that this is search engine optimized. Now I can already tell you that it's not, which I know for a fact. Laura already knows that it's not, but I'm going to just copy this and I'm just going to include a few more keywords like activity and some grade levels. So kindergarten, first grade, second, third grade. Okay, who is this for? First, kinder through third grade teachers. And then an optional upsell. So this is my upsell a write the room vocabulary bundle bundle. Save big when you purchase the right the room vocabulary bundle.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then I'm going to copy and paste the template. So I'm going to tell chat GPT here's the template you're going to use. So I'm going to copy and paste the entire prompt and then I'm going to type it in You'll experience meaningful differentiation with this community helper. Write the room vocabulary activity for kindergarten through third grade. Say goodbye to surface level clipart and hello to confident, real world ready learners. I'm going to take this, I'm going to copy and paste it, I'm going to put it right here down at the bottom, I'm going to insert a page break and I'm going to do a little bit of editing before this is totally ready. So the first thing I'm going to do is here where it says like you'll experience meaningful differentiation, like we're going to kind of tweak that a little bit. I'm actually going to tell it. Can you give me three more options for the snippet? And making it a little more engaging to the casual scroller? Okay so, no clip art here. This real photo right the room activity helps your K through three students spot actual community helpers and write about them without you lifting more than a finger to prep, or something like this. Let your students move right and learn about real life heroes, from firefighters to mail carriers. With this I'm going to say please make sure you include all the targeted keywords in the snippet options, because that's going to be very, very important for SEO purposes.
Speaker 1:So we're going to say this community helpers write the room vocabulary activity for kindergarten through third grade uses real photos, not clip art. Bring your community helpers unit to real life with this write the room vocabulary activity for kindergarten first, second and third grade. Real photos, real writing and real engagement. I really like this one. I'm going to replace the snippet and I'm going to delete this bar here. We don't need that, and this is product overview. Paragraph says this engaging around the room writing activity helps students build vocabulary and sentence writing skills. I'm going to bold that while learning about real world community helpers. It's ideal for kindergarten through third grade classrooms. It includes everything you need to print and use right away. Whether you're introducing new vocabulary, reviewing helpers roles or practicing sentence structures, this resource makes planning easier and learning more fun.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take this line right here. Actually, I'm going to do this. There we go, ideal for kindergarten, through third grade classrooms. And I'm going to say with two differentiated recording options, this activity is there we go. And then that way, there we go. So I'm going to change that up. And then what's included? 12 real photo community helper vocabulary cards, two differentiated recording sheet options. One I can statement card.
Speaker 1:This activity uses real pictures of community helpers, not clip art, which means your students will build familiarity real pictures, I'm going to put that in bold build familiarity with how these important individuals actually look in real life. And then we want to use I want to say that this was this ways to use this resource and call to action. I'm going to say independent practice activities. I'm going to go here and I'm going to do I'm going to bullet this, because this should be bulleted as a actually you know what bulletin, as a actually you know what Do this. I'm going to make sure that this is bulleted. So, ways to use this resource. And I'm going to take away this CTA, the call to action, and I'm going to underline that section and I'm going to say use it during a community helper unit as a writing center. And then I'm at movement-based vocabulary activity and then I'm going going to say, as daily exit tickets, one helper per day I can write around and say entry or exit ticket, so they could do one per day, so it doesn't necessarily have to be like a write the room, All right. So there's my call to action. And then I've got my cross sell or my upsell. So in this case I want them to do this bundle, looking for more write the room vocabulary practice. You'll love the write the room vocabulary bundle. And then when I copy and paste this on TPT, I will just hyperlink this one section that says write the room vocabulary bundle. And then when I copy and paste this on TPT, I will just hyperlink this one section that says write the room vocabulary bundle.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now I've got my full product description. It is search engine optimized, assuming that I have the right keywords here. It's search engine optimized and it's ready to go and I have something that a buyer can skim through and they can find the most important information. So when I skim through this got build vocabulary and sentence writing skills. Real world community helpers. Two differentiated recording options ideal for kindergarten through third grade classrooms. Two differentiated recording options ideal for kindergarten through third grade classrooms. What's included? And I've got my bulleted list real pictures build familiarity with how these important individuals actually look in real life, and then a bulleted list of ways to use this resource. So even if I read literally nothing apart from the bullets and the bolded statements, I have a really good idea of the main selling points for this particular product and everything is very easy, information wise, for me to take in. So this would be the upgrade that I would use for this particular product.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to do this one more time and I'm going to make a copy of this and we're going to do it for this resource, which actually looks pretty great. It has some really cute emojis in there super fun. But I do notice there are a couple of things First, it's a little bit short and second, it's a little bit like the. We're missing some of the finesse of really knowing what the primary selling points are for this product, and then there's a little bit of confusion in here where it says in the snippet that it's an 84 page resource and then later on I find out that 42 of those pages or half those pages are answer keys. So I think that we want to kind of change this one up just a little bit.
Speaker 1:This is a set of CVC words, phonics worksheets. So these are phonics worksheets for CVC words and there are several different types of worksheets that are in here circle the word. I spy and seek, cut, sort and glue. There are 42 different worksheets covering a variety of different types of activities that they can complete. And then there's one of them is a bonus color by code can complete, and then there's one of them is a bonus color by code. So there's circle, the word that matches the picture. There's circle, the picture that matches the word. There are several different options here. So what we're going to do is we are going to go in and we're going to start just like we did before, but we're just going to write it specifically for this product. So what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to take this resource and I'm tempted to just literally plug this in and say use the new template. But I don't know that that's going to work because we haven't outlined its primary selling points. So we're going to do this the right way. Okay, so I'm going to paste the new prompt in.
Speaker 1:So this is CVC phonics worksheets or activity worksheets, and then it's for pre-K and kinder Kinder, through second K, through second CVC words. Top three selling points. So I'm going to say the top three selling points is that there are three different types of activities included, or maybe four. We can include the bonus four different types of activities with 42 total pages of student practice. So we're going to say four different types of activities, so students don't get bored doing the same activity over and over. 42 pages of student practice with CVC words so they can master reading CVC words. And then we have, let's see four different types of activities, 42 pages of student practice, and then let's see no prep printable worksheets that can be used a variety of ways year round, very versatile, so versatile, so 42, let's see, let's see here what's included.
Speaker 1:I'm going to copy and paste this 31 circle, the word pages 10. I spy and seek. Okay, hang on, let's do this. The only thing I'm going to change about this. So I'm going to do, I'm going to copy and paste what she has. But I'm going to say I'm going to put the 31 at the beginning, 31, circle the word 10, I spy and seek and then 10 pages for the cut, sort and glue and then one bonus color by code page. So I'm going to copy and paste all of the words that she has in her title because we want to make sure they are all included in the snippet and whenever you paste that it makes it really huge. But that's okay.
Speaker 1:So this is for kindergarten through second grade teachers, and then I'm going to see if she has an upsell. I don't see one. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to her store this is Teaching Literacy with Deb and I'm going to look for I'm just going to type in CVC and we've got bingo cards that look super fun. So I'm going to say looking for more CVC word practice, try these super, super engaging CVC word bingo games. And then there's the link Okay, so I've already got the template that I want it to use. So we're going to copy and paste this in.
Speaker 1:We're going to go over here and say let's do this with another activity and say let's do this with another activity. There we go, experience, variety and engagement with this set of CVC words short vowel sounds, cut sort, paste, I, I, c. You can see here it just sort of like word vomited, all the keywords in. Let's rewrite the snippet to sound a little more natural, while still using all the keywords. Give your students, your K-2 students, hands-on practice with these CVC words. Short vowel sounds, cut sort, paste, I, spy, seek. It's still a little bit of word vomit.
Speaker 1:42 pages of CVC words, short vowel sounds, phonics worksheets with cut sort paste, I, spy and seek activities. Your K through two learners will love the keywords still sound difficult and I'll say like unnatural and a little like keyword vomit. Let's fix that. The CVC phonics worksheets makes short vowel sounds fun to practice, so I like this one. But we're going to say these 42 CVC words, so I like that one.
Speaker 1:So we're going to come down here and we're going to rewrite this. So this is my snippet these 42, and then 42 CVC phonics worksheets Bold that and then I'm going to come back up and I'm going to paste the rest and we'll go through it with a little bit more of fine tooth comb. So we never want to just take what chat GPT spits out to us and be like this is it, this is perfect. You want to go through it, you want to read everything. Make sure it didn't just make something up, because sometimes it can do that. We also want to check formatting, because in this case we're using these little pencils to kind of format and we don't need bullets alongside the little pencil emojis. So we've got this set of no prep phonics worksheets. So we're going to say no prep phonics worksheets. I'm going to bold that Help students master reading. Master reading CVC words. I'm going to bold that as well.
Speaker 1:Through a variety of hands-on activities. It's ideal for K-2 classrooms to include everything you need to print and use right away. I'm going to go ahead and separate this next sentence into its own little paragraph so it makes it a little bit easier to read. Whether introducing short vowel sounds or reviewing them throughout the year, this resource makes planning easier and learning more fun. What's included? 31 circle the word worksheets. So I'm going to bold that part right there. And the reason that we took those numbers out and we put them in the beginning is that numbers convey value. So anytime I can use a number in my bulleted list to convey value, that is absolutely ideal. Okay so I've got 31, circle, the word worksheet. Students choose the correct CBC word to match the picture and we've got all of that. So now I'm just going to delete these little lines in here.
Speaker 1:I'm going to come through and I'm going to read out this section on highlighting one selling point this activity includes four different worksheet styles, which means your students stay engaged and never bored with the same task. I'm going to bold that, whether you're rotating through literacy centers or assigning independent seat work, you'll have options that appeal to a variety of learning styles without all the extra prep. Okay, so I'm going to remove that section that says call to action and I'm going to say, oh, ways to use ways to use literacy centers, and I'm going to put this on. There we go Morning work, small group instruction, homework or early finishers, and then there are my different options. With 42 pages of phonics practice, you'll have everything you need for consistent, low prep reinforcement of short vowel CVC word skills all year long. Grab this today and make planning easier. Okay, so we're going to remove this section that says cross, sell, upsell and then looking for more CVC word practice. You'll love these CVC word bingo games and we would just hyperlink that in. Okay.
Speaker 1:So we have a product description that's about the perfect length. We have a really great mixture of paragraphs like short skimmable paragraphs, bulleted lists. Short skimmable paragraph bulleted list. Short skimmable paragraph upsell Okay, and we've done this fairly quickly. So, again, if you want to use these product description templates, you can find them. I've got them for bundles. You can use them with chat GPT, which I love.
Speaker 1:I feel like one of the big things that I see when sellers are writing a product description and one of their big pitfalls is that they skip that very first step, because it's kind of time consuming. That step that says, hey, what are the top three selling points for your resource? And then we forget to write about it. Sometimes we get so close to the resource itself we know all the selling points, we forget to include them and to talk about them inside of the product description and we do not want to do that. So, taking the time to make sure that you're incorporating those keywords that you worked so hard to find for search engine optimization purposes, making sure they appear naturally within your snippet, making sure that they appear throughout the product description and then also making sure that you are focusing on the big selling points that your resource has to showcase the value that your product has to the buyer can go a long way towards helping them decide to add that product to cart.
Speaker 1:If you listened to this on podcast, trust me when I say you wanna go watch the YouTube video, because it is kind of difficult to follow along without seeing, and it'll make so much more sense if you are watching it on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube, if you are not subscribed to my channel, go subscribe as soon as you get the chance, in fact right now. You can go subscribe right now. As long as you are not subscribed to my channel, go subscribe as soon as you get the chance, in fact right now. You can go subscribe right now as long as you're not driving. Go subscribe so that you can watch these videos and follow along with what I'm saying. A lot of times I'm sharing my screen while I'm trying to talk so that I can show you guys a little bit more and go a little bit deeper with you guys. Make sure you're subscribed to my YouTube channel. Thanks, so.