After reading this, you'll be ready to create, sell and market your notion templates while growing an audience at the same time.
Hello!
My name is Hossam Zaki. So far, I've launched 2 Notion Templates, getting +1,400 downloads, $300+, and 700+ followers, all in the span of about a month. Everything I learned is right here in this post.
After reading this, you'll be ready to create, sell and market your notion templates while growing an audience at the same time.
So, grab a cup of tea and a snack, and let's jump right in
If you have any questions, please reach out to me on Twitter @hossamzki
How to Learn/Use Notion
What is Notion?
Notion is an extremely powerful tool. Think of it as Google Drive, Jira, Trello, and Evernote all in one app. It's incredibly powerful as a knowledge management tool, a task manager, a finance tracker, and pretty much anything you can think of. So clearly, learning how to use it will be incredibly useful.
So, how do you learn it?
I think the best way to learn Notion is by watching videos, and exploring templates for yourself. That way, you'll get to see how people use Notion, and take bits and pieces of what you like. Some of my favorite Notion creators are Thomas Frank, Marie Poulin , heyeaslo, notionbar, and Me 😃!
Duplicate some of their templates, and learn a bit more about how the databases connect to each other, the different database views, and filters. Thomas Frank's video on his quick capture system, Marie Poulin's video on her Notion setup, and my video on my second brain in Notion are great resources as they go through every part of their setup, and how all of the pieces come together.
This thread goes into more depth on different resources to learn Notion.
As always, to learn anything well, you need to apply your knowledge. Use your newfound Notion knowledge and make something for yourself. Maybe you want to keep track of the groceries in your fridge. Maybe you want to keep track of the blog posts you're writing. In general, applying your knowledge will solidify your understanding of the topic.
Now that we learned some Notion, let's get to the fun part.
How to create templates
What should I make?
This is probably one of the hardest things of this entire guide. Don't worry. I'll help you out.
Create something valuable that will save people TIME and/or EFFORT. In my case, I built a second brain in Notion. This saves my audience a ton of time having to build out the template as well as remembering their tasks and projects. I've also seen finance trackers on Notion around Twitter. These will help people keep track of their finances in an easy to use way, rather than using so many apps.
To start, I suggest solving a problem that YOU have. For me, I needed a task manager. So I built my second brain. If it's a problem you have, odds are other people have it too.
But the key thing is: understand your audience. Build something for THEM. If you're in personal development twitter, you probably shouldn't make something that will keep track of how many YouTube videos they are watching. That just doesn't fit with the audience.
A great way to go about this is to come up with several ideas, and make a POLL. You'll be directly asking your audience what they want, and its better than simply guessing. If you're a small account, this may be tough.
Get a feel for what your audience wants, and build something they want.
OK, I built it. Now what?
Great work! You built your Notion template! There's a few things you should do now.
Go through a few tests of your template
- Make sure everything is working as it should. Make sure that no databases in your page are connected to databases that you use all the time. That will just cause confusion
Make it look nice
- Make the layout of the template look good. Don't just cram everything it. Use useful emojis, custom fonts/icons.
Make an explainer video/page
- Notion templates can sometimes be hard to navigate. Having a page at the top of your template going through what each part of your template does might be really useful
- If you want to go the extra mile, then feel free to make a video explaining it. Your users will really appreciate the work that you put into it, and you'll probably get more downloads this way.
Once you do that, make the template.
Publishing the template
OK, if you're at this part of the guide, then you have a working Notion Template, and are ready to sell it. Let's get to it.
Where should I host my template?
I recommend listing your template on Gumroad. It will allow you to collect payments for your work, keep track of emails, and make a beautiful listing.
What should my description be?
I wouldn't worry too much about the copy. It doesn't have to be perfect, BUT it has to be effective. Make sure you are communicating to the customer what the product is, and what they are getting. Here are some examples: my second brain, Aadit's swipe file, Blake's thread hub, Mustafa's Ebook.
Make sure it gets across what you are making
What should my visuals be?
Your visual doesn't have to be super hi-fidelity. If you do want a really good one, I'd check out Cata C on twitter. She sells mockups on gumroad.
If you don't want to spend any money, then making something on Figma is also a possibility. Make sure the visual communicates what it is. Don't put too much effort into the main visual, focus more on making the template great.
In addition to the main visual, include 1-2 screenshots of your Notion template just to give people a glimpse of what they're getting.
A short URL goes a long way. Put a custom URL on your gumroad product to share it easier
How much should I sell it for?
This depends on what you are building and your overall goal. If your goal is for a lot of followers and some money, then I'd go the free route. If your goal is for not a whole lot of followers, but a decent amount of money, then I'd go for the paid route. You'll have to play with the amount. If its a relatively simple template, then anything <$10 is great. If you're selling a set of templates in like a pack, then depending on the amount of templates, it can go from $10 to $30 to even $50 sometimes.
In the beginning, I'd suggest going the free route. It will help you build your credibility, and get your name out there. After a couple of free launches, and once you have a sizable audience, then having a paid product is possible.
It's not like you aren't going to make any money from a free product. I made over $250 and Aadit with his swipe file has made over $500 🤯.
Launch strategy
Launching is extremely important. If not done correctly, you could get 0 engagements, which is not what we want. Let's walk through it.
How should I launch?
Invite your audience to "steal" the template from you. Compose a tweet that will ask them to comment or retweet to get access to the template. A common practice is to have people comment with a 👋🏽 . This will drive the engagement of your tweet, and it will get picked up by the twitter algorithm. With every person who comments, DM them the link to your gumroad product, and reply to their comment. Again. Engagement.
Sometimes, your launch can go horribly wrong. Like my "first" launch.
0 replies.
2 Likes.
Trash.
But the best thing about having a product is that. you can launch as many times as you want. Here's the tweet that really took off.
There's a few things you can do to get the ball rolling
- Have a decent following at first. I think that over 100 is the best way to do it. But you can surely do it with less. But having <20 will probably not work. You need people to see it!
- Ask some bigger accounts to reply. There's a caveat to this though. Don't DM random accounts asking them to reply. Make sure you've been following them for a while, and been engaging with their content. Then, simply DM them and ask for a reply.
Here are some great examples of this:
Be careful about spamming. Don't copy and paste the same DM over and over again. That can get you banned.
Now sit back, relax, watch the emails roll in, and DM everyone. Not to mention, you'll get a bunch of followers along the way.
OMG I HAVE SO MANY PEOPLE TO DM
This is a good problem. People are liking your stuff and are downloading your template. Send a templated DM to as many people as you can. If it gets too much, then officially launch your template, and reply on your first tweet with your launch tweet. That should help.
OK, it's been a few days. Now what?
Take a look at your followers. Has there been an increase? How much? How many people have downloaded it? Take note of this, and apply it to your next launch.
Something else you can do is to post it on ProductHunt. Here is my post. Doesn't need to be super crazy, just another way for you to advertise your product.
Conclusion
Hopefully this helped you out, and will get you money, followers, and credibility online. If it did work, please send me a DM, and let me know! If there's any feedback you have on this guide, please DM me as well! Best of luck!!
No one's replying... What do I do?
It's OK. Launch again. Try a different strategy. Ask some of your twitter friends to reply
I don't want to make any money, how should I host it?
Just a regular notion template will do.
How do I know if my Notion knowledge is enough?
Try building out your idea. If you have problems, then go back and revisit some stuff. Else, just build it :)
How many times can I do this?
Unlimited :) Works every time
If this worked for you, give me a follow on Twitter , Youtube , and check out my website!
Hossam Zaki is a student at Brown University interested in the combination of Computer Science and Biology.
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