There are always interesting stories on Inc.com and the site doesn’t disappoint with the recent story of how one teacher has sold over $1 million worth of lesson plans in the past few years:
So what makes Jump’s plans so popular?
“They’re well-designed. They are packed with highly creative, well thought out, effective activities for five year olds,” Edelman says. “And, she’s a great and savvy self-promoter and marketer of her materials.”
Central to Jump’s marketing strategy is her popular blog about teaching–aptly titled Mrs. Jump’s Class–that she uses to promote her lesson plans.
It’s pretty impressive.
The site is TeachersPayTeachers.com. Now, Jump is in the minority. She’s the one that has sold the most and while a handful of others have done well too there are many that are probably making pennies on the venture.
There is no doubt the efforts of Jump start with great lesson plans. The merchandise or the service will always be most important in a sale, but you could also argue that without effective marketing a good product would go unnoticed.
That’s why it was interesting to me to see that Mrs. Jump uses her blog to sell her goods.
Mrs. Jump’s Class
The first thing that surprised me about Mrs. Jump’s Class was the fact that it was on a basic Blogspot URL. That is the free version of the Blogger blogging platform now owned by Google. This proves that you can really make a blog or business successful with the very basic blogging structure.
Also, Mrs. Jump was not afraid to promote her store on her blog. She already had the attention of her readers and she knew they were interested in her products so throughout the holiday shopping season she offered promotions and discounts sending her blog readers to the store so they could purchase her latest lesson plans.
The blog is very personal. You know that Deanna Jump is writing the posts. The theme and the font make sense for a Kindergarten teacher. The feel is correct and some may call it simple, but it makes complete sense. That’s important for blogging. You want to represent your industry and I’m sure that was easy for Mrs. Jump because she had been doing it for many years by teaching her class. Now she’s speaking to other Kindergarten teachers on her blog and effectively selling them on her lesson plans.
Overall, Mrs. Jump brings emotion to her blog. She really pours herself into the posts and that’s important. You can tell who she is just by reading her blog posts. She shares freebies with readers along with writing about new products. It’s a great basic strategy for business bloggers.
Obviously the blog is not the sole reason for the success of Mrs. Jump’s lesson plan business, but it is interesting to see that the blog is noted as the center of her marketing efforts.
We’ve been seeing more of this in the online world where companies are using blogs to market themselves. It’s a great way to build trust and bring in traffic from a variety of sources.