Sales – the end goal of uploading materials to your Prepyourlesson account. If you’ve ever wondered what it would take to get more people to buy your materials – you’re not alone, especially if it’s your first time selling your materials online. Well, don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place – who better to ask for sales advice than someone on the PrepYourLesson team, someone who sees which kind of products are favored by the community? Bear with me while I take you through the tips and tricks to creating products that’ll appeal to even the most fastidious of buyers!

1. The cover image

So many sellers overlook this important aspect! The cover image is literally the face of your product, that is why having a good quality, eye-catching cover image is essential to attractign more users. Make sure to take the time to create a nice and accurate cover image og the product that you are selling – this does not mean you have to use screenshots of the material in your cover image – save that for the previews. Your cover image should include the title of the material and a nice big image from that material that accurately reflects the content of the product. For example, if your product’s title is “Around the World – common phrases for traveling”, you could include an image of a plane circling a globe, or an umbrella on a beach – go crazy with the creativity, but make sure it makes sense to the buyer.

2. Product description and tags

As much as the face of your product matters, the interior is no less significant (if not more)! Once you’ve captured your buyer’s attention and they’ve clicked on your product, they’ll be able to see your product description – this is where it is crucial to go into a bit of depth – make sure your product description is elaborate and is a good reflection of what the material contains. The more detail, the better. Consider it a sales pitch to your potential buyer. Don’t forget to include preview photos – those could make or break the purchase – after all, we want to make sure those jeans fit before we buy them! Lastly, include all the relevant tags – not only will this help potential buyers determine whether the material fits them, but it’ll also help lead future buyers to your product through the product filter system.

3. Design

This one’s a shocker, yes, but design really does matter! Our sales show that sellers who use a consistent and nice design for their products tend to get more purchases. Important factors include font (make sure it's understandable and easy to read!), images used (good quality), and layout (can’t have text boxes floating all over the place!). Sellers who have mastered this aspect of their product consistently receive more attention for their products. If you’re still using google docs to create your materials – don’t fret, there’s plenty of free and paid design tools that you can use to spice up your materials! Try Canva or Figma for a start.

4. Workbooks

Yes, this is an odd one. Our sales results do show that materials labeled as workbooks receive a considerable amount of attention from buyers. Perhaps it's because workbooks tend to incorporate multiple exercises on one topic, making them ideal for online lessons. Or maybe it’s because some of the workbooks are about topics that are familiar to a lot of people and allow tutors to implement pop culture icons into their teaching. Whatever it is, our buyers seem to favor longer, more elaborate materials with multiple exercises.

5. Bundles

Similar to Workbooks, bundles offer a wider variety of material to work with than say, a single worksheet. So, buyers may feel like they are getting the most bang for their buck. By bundling related products together, you can offer customers a better value and encourage them to purchase more of your materials. Try this next time – instead of uploading a ppt, an exercise worksheet, and flashcards separately, create a whole lesson plan that includes all three of these materials and sell them in a bundle (if you wish, you can also upload them separately and include links to each separate material in your bundle description). See if that makes a difference!

Phew. That was a lot. But don’t be stressed – not all of these tips are requirements, and of course there are products that don’t exactly follow all of these rules and still enjoy a considerable amount of success. Use the above as guidelines to help you out – remember, you can always go back and edit your published products. Also, feel free to experiment – who knows, maybe soon it’ll be you telling us about what you think works best!