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5 Things Teachers Need to Consider Prior to Selling Educational Content Online
Many teachers are making money by selling their educational resources online. They are taking content they have already created for their students, moving them online to TeachersPayTeachers or their own website, and are really cashing out.
The part that nobody likes to share though, how?
Is it really as easy as just throwing a resource us and watching the cash money roll in?
I so desperately wish I could say it was that simple, but y'all know it ain't!
I am going to release a series of blog entries that take portions of my course From Educator to Entrepreneur, and share bits and pieces of the most important takeaways from the modules.
Before diving into the teacher seller space, you have to be not only intentional, but consider who your website, social media, and teaching resources will serve.
Check out this graphic below for a breakdown of the initial things you need to consider prior to just tossing some content up.
Passion
Niche
Audience
Problem
You first must sit back and reflect on your current online presence and what your online presence needs to blossom into as you begin your teacherpreneur journey.
I always recommend that people do their best to show up online as authentically as possible. You cannot screw up at being yourself. People are naturally drawn to those who keep it real, show who they really are (and not some IG influencer mold), that are just as raw and uncut as they come.
Being authentic means even if a fellow teacher doesn't share a ton of similarities with you, they still can find you relatable simply for showing up online as yourself. It's something that teachers love-- those unique and quirky attributes that make humans different.
Passion If you aren't quite sure what you can do to make money in the teacher space online, then consider what you are passionate about. What could you do for free? What do your fellow teacher friends come to you begging for help with? What are you the go-to teacher for? This could get your juices flowing to begin gathering ideas of what you could make your area of expertise. Remember: Many teachers sell resources, but there's other things too. You could sell templates or video lessons, create merchandise (at your home or using a site like Printful that fulfills the orders for you), tutoring, editing, the list is endless!
Niche After you've considered your passions, you need to narrow it down to a fine area called your niche. Many teachers make the mistake of having too broad of a niche because they want to reach so many areas in an attempt to make the most possible money. I have found that I narrowed in to a specific area and create the same niched resources on repeat to ensure I am not stretching myself all over the place. Think about this: What is your special standout area in the teacherpreneur space? Ex: Mine is Gen Z/tech resources that engage secondary students.
Audience Now that you've established not only your passions, but your niche as well, it's time to pinpoint your audience. Do not make the mistake of casting a wide net here either-- much like narrowing a niche, you need to fine tune your target audience. Here's a few non-examples for an audience because ti will be a bit too wide: teachers, English teachers, elementary school teachers. A more specific audience could be: upper elementary reading teachers, Algebra 1 teachers, US History teachers. These are defined to the specific area in which you will be providing services or content for-- having a bunch of teacher followers is cool, for sure. But those followers only convert to dollars if they are the audience who is aligned with your content.
Problem If you've mastered the previous three items, this one should be easy. Think of your passion, consider your niche, focus in on your ideal audience-- now tell me this, what is a problem they are struggling with and how can you solve for that issue for them? For me, my audiences problems could be a few things. A couple are:
Struggling with student engagement
Need online activities for remote learning
Want new ways to build relationships and get to know students
Do not have time to create beautified content
Do not have the tech or design skills to make their own resources
My resources are all editable and include interactive and engaging content for students to complete that start conversations, allow for mental health checks, and encourage students to dive into their assignments. I have solved a problem for secondary teachers time-and-time again.
Here's an exact example of a resource I recently created. It is an end of the year, summer anticipation activity for the kiddos. It's linked here if you wanna check it out!
Breaking down this specific resource and how it fits into the areas we touched on above👇👇
Niche: Gen Z/tech resources that engage secondary student
Audience: Secondary Teachers
Problem: Struggling with end-of-year student engagement, need online activities for remote learning, don't have the tech/design skills to create end-of-the-year slides
After you map out all of these things, you then can begin to start crafting your social media content to reach said audience and begin providing them with the solution to their problems. Practice this, and once you have it mastered, you will unlock the key to making money consistently in your niche.
A Recap
The next post we will cover some marketing ideas that have helped me along this teacherpreneur journey.
If you are ready to invest in learning the whole process in a 5 module, self paced course, I recommend you snag a spot in From Educator to Entrepreneur. This course allows you to move at your own speed, has over 25+ prerecorded videos, and comes with a 97 page e-book and workbook that covers Mindset, Monetization, Marketing, Selling, and Launching your Teacher Site.
Proofread, but if you know me, you have learned I am the typo queen-- and suck at catching my own mistakes. Also, I am a recovering perfectionist so, cheers to chilling out and as the kids say, knowing it be like that, sometimes.
Cheers,
Ty Tiger | Kinda Sorta Teacher