Latest / Content Marketing with Fexingo: Blogs, Videos, and Long-Form Content That Converts / How Notion Built a Content Ecosystem Users Actually Want
Transcript
- Lucas: So Notion surpassed a hundred million users earlier this year. That number is impressive, but what's more interesting to me is how they got there through content — specifically, content they barely wrote themselves. Luna: You're talking about the template gallery, right? Because that is such a different approach from the typical blog and ebook playbook. Lucas: Exactly. Most SaaS companies invest heavily in original research, thought leadership pieces, polished case studies. Notion does some of that. But their real content engine is a library of over fifty thousand templates — project trackers, meeting notes, habit trackers, second brain systems — almost all of them built by users. Luna: And they just let anyone submit a template? Where does the curation come in? Lucas: There's a submission process, but it's lightweight. Users can publish a template to the gallery with a cover image, a short description, and a few tags. Notion's team does a quick quality check — making sure it's not broken, no spam — and then it goes live. The best ones get featured on the homepage or in seasonal collections. But the key point is that Notion doesn't commission these templates. Users make them because they want to show off a system that works for them. Luna: So the motivation is partly ego, partly community contribution. And partly, I'd imagine, visibility — if your template gets popular, you become a 'Notion expert' in the community. Lucas: Right. And that ecosystem has created a flywheel. More templates attract more users. More users create more templates. Notion's content team does almost no heavy lifting in terms of production. They maintain the platform, run the gallery, and occasionally spotlight creators. But the volume and variety of content far exceeds what any in-house team could produce. Luna: Do you have a sense of how much traffic the template gallery drives? Lucas: Notion doesn't break it out publicly, but third-party estimates from Similarweb and other tools suggest the gallery pages get somewhere between thirty and fifty million visits per year. And those visitors aren't just browsing — they're arriving with intent. Someone searching for 'best Notion task manager template' is pretty close to becoming a paying user. Luna: That's a high-intent audience. Compare that to a blog post like '10 Productivity Tips' — the search volume might be higher, but the conversion intent is much lower. Lucas: Exactly. And Notion has layered another piece on top: they turned templates into a distribution channel. When you use a template, it often includes a link back to the creator's profile or website. So creators have an incentive to promote their templates on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok. That means thousands of creators are effectively doing affiliate marketing for Notion — but without an affiliate program, without commission. They just want the clout and the traffic. Luna: It's almost like an influencer program without the cost. But there's a risk, right? If you let users create templates, the quality can vary wildly. Some templates are genuinely great, some are just a single to-do list. Lucas: That's true. But Notion has solved for that with curation and discoverability. They have a 'trending' section, a 'staff picks' section, and they run themed collections — like 'Back to School' or 'New Year Reset'. That surfaces the best stuff. And the community itself polices quality: low-effort templates get few saves and disappear from the feed. So the best rise, and the rest are just there for the niche user who might want a simple template. Luna: So the economics of this are fascinating. Instead of paying writers and designers to produce content, Notion is essentially paying for server costs and a small curation team. That's a fraction of the cost of a typical content marketing budget. Lucas: Right. And the content they get is more authentic and more useful because it's built by people who actually use the product daily. There's no marketing spin. A template for 'Running a Remote Design Sprint' isn't written by a copywriter — it's created by a designer who actually does remote design sprints. That credibility is hard to manufacture. Luna: I also think there's a retention angle here. Once you've invested time building a system inside Notion using a template, switching costs are high. You've customized it, added your own notes, linked it to other databases. You're not going to leave for a competitor easily. Lucas: Absolutely. The template gallery is both an acquisition channel and a retention moat. And it's something competitors struggle to replicate. You can copy a feature set, but you can't copy a community that's already generated fifty thousand templates. That's a network effect in content. Luna: Are there other companies doing this well? I'm thinking of Canva's template library, but that's more design-focused. Lucas: Canva is a good parallel. They also have a huge template library, but the difference is that Canva's templates are mostly designed by professionals they pay or license from. Notion's are truly user-generated, which keeps costs lower and variety higher. Another example is Webflow — they have a showcase of user-built websites. But the scale is much smaller. Luna: What about the downside? User-generated content can sometimes include brand-inappropriate material. Templates that are poorly designed or even offensive could slip through. Lucas: Notion has had to invest in moderation. They use a combination of automated filters and a small human review team. It's not perfect — there have been instances of templates with inappropriate content or copyright violations. But they've gotten better over time. And the cost of moderation is still far less than producing the content yourself. Luna: So for a SaaS company considering this model, what would you say are the prerequisites? Lucas: First, your product needs to be flexible enough that users can create something shareable. Notion is a blank canvas — you can build almost anything. If your product is more rigid, templates might not be as valuable. Second, you need a community that's willing to contribute. That often means starting with a small group of power users and giving them recognition. Third, you need a discovery mechanism — a gallery or marketplace — so good templates don't get lost. Luna: And you need to resist the urge to over-polish. Notion's templates are often rough around the edges. But that authenticity is part of the appeal. Lucas: Exactly. If Notion had a team of designers create 'official' templates that were perfect, they'd lose the grassroots feel. The messiness signals that real people made this. That's hard to replicate with a top-down approach. Luna: Speaking of messy but valuable — I think the same principle applies to how we approach this podcast. We try to keep it conversational, not overly produced, because that's what makes it feel like a real conversation. Lucas: I think that's fair. And if these episodes spark something you've actually used in your work, that's exactly what we hope for. Honestly, if today was worth a coffee to you, there's a link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That kind of support is what keeps this show ad-free and lets us keep digging into stories like this one. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to say this content matters to you. And we really appreciate it. Lucas: So back to Notion — one more angle I want to touch on. They recently started experimenting with ai generated template suggestions based on what you've already built in your workspace. That could take the template strategy to another level. Luna: Right, so instead of browsing a gallery, the tool suggests a template based on your existing structure. That's personalization at scale. Lucas: And it keeps users inside the product. If you're a new user and Notion says 'Hey, I see you're creating a project tracker — here's a popular template from the community that might help,' that's a much better onboarding experience than a generic 'Welcome' email. Luna: So the template strategy evolves from a static library to a dynamic recommendation engine. That's smart. Lucas: It also creates more data for Notion. They can see which templates are used together, which ones lead to higher retention, which features get adopted after using a template. That feedback loop helps them improve both the product and the content. Luna: It's almost like their content marketing is a product feature in itself. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the big takeaway for me. The most effective content marketing isn't a separate function that produces articles and videos. It's embedded in the product experience. Notion's template gallery isn't a marketing initiative — it's a core part of how the product works. That's a lesson a lot of companies still haven't learned. Luna: So what's the next frontier for Notion's content ecosystem? Lucas: I think we'll see more integration with third-party apps — templates that pull in data from Google Calendar, Slack, or Asana. And possibly a marketplace where premium templates are sold, with Notion taking a cut. That would turn their content engine into a revenue stream. Luna: Interesting. So the content that used to be a cost center could become a profit center. Lucas: Right. But for now, the template gallery remains a masterclass in letting your users do the marketing for you. All you have to do is give them the tools and a little bit of recognition. Luna: And resist the urge to control it too much. That's the hardest part for most brands. Lucas: For sure. But the payoff is a content ecosystem that grows on its own.