As we scroll through Teachers Pay Teachers we see stores who fall into 3 visual styles. Which style is your store? Which style is my store? Let’s unpack it together in today’s epsiode.
Episode Highlights
- What is a store style?
- 3 store styles (and tips for each type)
- Why does a cohesive brand style matter?
Resources and Links
https://www.thesouthernteachdesigns.com/enroll
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Transcript
Kirsten 0:00
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, everybody, Happy Monday. Welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast. So I wanted to turn one of my very first blog posts into a podcast episode. I can't believe it would be like three and a half years since I originally published this blog post on having a store style. And a lot of what I wrote still rings true. And so I wanted to re highlight this content.
So today we're going to be talking about having a TPT store style. When I think back to my time in the classroom. It's so funny of how teachers just have their own way of doing things. We always vary in how we might arrange your desks. Some people prefer rows some people like group some people like to change out their seating chart every month, or maybe they do it once or twice a year. We all vary in how we would plan our lessons or decorate our classrooms and manage our students. And the same can be said about teacher salaries. We all have our own logo colors and our own favorite fonts and our own Instagram feeds and different types of resources to offer in the education world. For teacher printers who are also selling resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, we always think about how we want to organize our TPT store friend. So today we're going to be thinking about what a store style is three types of store styles or brand styles. And in those three different types of store styles, I share kind of some tips on how to make the most of having that brand style so you might identify with one or more store style.
Alright, so let's backtrack. What is the source style. So store brand style is the overall theme and look of your TPT Store Profile, otherwise known as a brand identity. It's what your ideal teacher customers see visually as they are clicking and viewing your resources that they might potentially add to cart.
Let's talk about the first store style this is the minimalist the minimalist is no fuss, no frills and likes to keep things classic. These teachers sellers love to create simple quality resources without the extra bells and whistles. They might value a store where they can get what they need and go without getting lost in all the extra designs or clutter as they may call it. In the minimalist TPT stores you might see titles and pictures that are straight to the point and showcase what a potential buyer is looking for very simplistic, but still stands out in a really clean way. You might also not want your resources to be flashy or too bold because that's just not how you roll. So my tip if you feel like you identify with a minimalist store style is to make sure to always add at least one bright and bold color. So thinking about my previous episode last week on having that core base color, you could probably go with having a monochromatic color harmony because then you You can kind of play with that one variation of color and it's more subtle, it doesn't have too much flashiness going around. But it's a great way to land more eyes on your resources, and to give your store a little bit of an extra pop.
The second type of store style is the scroll stopper. The scroll stopper loves all things bright and bold. These teacher sellers cannot get enough of eye catching covers and colors and fonts and photos and clipart. They love it. They love all of the brightness. They also have a knack for knowing what draws in potential customers because their store makes it hard to resist not clicking to take a closer look. In the scroll stoppers TPT stores, you might find fun and bright product covers and appealing stock photos and pictures, and maybe a little rainbow color. But this also not only helps you feel confident and happy. It also helps you know that others will feel the same when they're looking at your resources. So my best tip for the scroll stopper is to check to make sure your store looks cohesive and it flows in a way that is recognizable for buyers. It's one thing to have a lot of different colors everywhere. But then there's another thing to have like way too many colors. And it just doesn't all go together. It's kind of like a visual overload. So when you are putting and changing up your product covers or your colors in the different resources you might have, make sure you have a common theme so that it keeps you top of mind in the long run.
The third type of store style would be the trendsetter. So this is a little bit of a wild card. These teacher sellers love trendy designs and fonts and patterns and photographs, they may know and have an idea of what's in and what's out in the education world and they are not afraid to capitalize on it. So this could look like changing up their storefront pretty frequently or their fonts that they use on their website or on their cover photos or on their graphics a lot maybe too often. So this type of trendsetter store style, you're gonna find unique product lines or titles, popular and viral resources, fun store features that not many sellers are including, you're not afraid to march to the beat of your own drum, which is always a positive. But my best tip for you is to try to have that fun, unique flair in your branding. But think about how consistency is key. You can always bring in different neutral elements to offset your flair and unique personality. So that it kind of hones in on like it's more consistency is really the main thing to think about is try to not change everything a lot. Keep it as simple as possible. With that fun and unique spin. Having a cohesive brand style can be a very powerful thing. It can create a really great impression on your ideal teacher customers. And it helps you stand out from the pack of other TPT stores out there.
You can probably guess that my TPT store branding is definitely what I would consider a scroll stopper, I don't change a lot of my look very frequently you're going to see those same rainbow elements that I had even a few years ago. So that's kind of where I stand on that. And I love it.
If you're looking for tips on having a brand identity and what goes into really bringing the visual part of your branding and your business to life. I do have the brand identity for teacher sellers. It's of course part of the creative teacher lab. This is a mini course that goes into determining your inspiration and selecting color palettes and fonts and going through the process of creating logos and different logo variations and other branding items to make your store style even more awesome than it already is.
All right. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode. And you can always learn more about the creative teacher lab at the southern teach designs.com forward slash enroll. I will see you guys next week. Thanks for listening 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 follow me on Instagram at the southern teach dot designs. Have an amazing day.