Monday, July 13, 2015

Teachers Pay Teachers Follower Newsletters

I've really been trying to work on my TpT store this summer.  I've tried sprucing products up, making them more eye-catching, and adding some new products.  One thing I've decided I have wanted to start doing is consistently sending out monthly newsletters to my followers.  I want it to include images of new products they may want to check out, tell them about my blog, and send a thank you to them for being a follower of my store! One way I've decided to thank my store followers is by sending out a monthly freebie!  For the month of July, all my followers at the time received a link to a Google Doc. of my brand new Nonfiction Text Features Assessment: "Orcas."

 So, I don't know about you, but for me it is SO easy to just click delete when I get new messages in my TpT inbox.  I'll skim them, but if it doesn't quickly catch my eye, I don't give it much attention.  I've noticed the messages that I take my time to really read are the ones that are "cutified."  Okay, so I just made that word up, but it just had to be used! :)  I didn't want my followers to do the same thing with my newsltters and miss out of on the monthly follwer freebie, so I decided I had to "cutify" my newsletter as well!

Now, I will first admit that I am still in the learning stages of how to do a lot of this stuff.  Most of the time when I'm doing it, I have whatever I'm working on on one part of my computer screen and a tutorial on how to do it on the other side of the screen. Here's just a quick run down of what I did!

I started out in Power Point (my go-to for just about everything!).  I inserted a cute background and frame first!

Then, I got to work.  My newsletter consisted of 4 main parts.  First, I wrote a general hello & thank you note.  In the second section, I wrote about some of the new projects I was working on and even put the names and images of a couple of these. For this particular newsletter I wrote about some of the QR Code Task Cards I was working on, and then showcased 3 of them that were currently up in my store.
You can check out all my QR Code Task Cards in my TpT Store

In the 3rd section of my newsletter, I wanted to focus on my Follower Freebie for that month! I wrote about that month's freebie, included an image, and a link for the Google Doc to download it.

And lastly, I also made sure to add my blog button to the bottom of my newsletter...just to kind of start branding my stuff and hopefully start directly people to check out my blog as well.

When I was done, this was what it looked like.


Then, I saved my power point as a png file.  To do this, Click "Save As" and scroll through the "Save As Type" section until you get to PNG.  Select it and click save. (The black bar was not on it.  I just blacked out the link for the free download to keep that as a special treat for my store followers. :))


Then, I logged into my TpT Store and clicked the link to send a new message to followers.  (I would include image step-by-steps of this next part, but I have a few weeks until TpT will let me compose another letter to my followers since we're restricted to just one per month).

When you are sending a note to your followers, there is an icon at the top of where you compose your letter that lets you insert a picture.  Click this, and then upload your newsletter image! :)  There should also be a button to link your image to a web address.  Since I was focused on my follower freebie for the month, I linked my newsletter image to the Google Doc with my freebie!

Then, if you want to add any more links in your letter, you will need to just add it below your cutesy little newsletter.  Sorry, this is so vague.  It's difficult to describe when I can't go back and look at the step-by-step process.  When I send my August newsletter out with my next Follower Freebie! I will try to take snapshots and update this post.  For now, I hope this helps some! :)

Kristyn

3 comments:

  1. Great overview! I love how you make the "newsletter" with papers and borders! Thanks for the information!

    Melissa Williams
    First Grade Frame of Mind

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great overview! I love how you make the "newsletter" with papers and borders! Thanks for the information!

    Melissa Williams
    First Grade Frame of Mind

    ReplyDelete
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