Matt Hall's Portfolio
Let's keep a good thing going.
All things considered, your business is doing pretty well during a weird, weird time.
You’re hiring during a pandemic! That means you were prepared before it hit. You adapted quickly when the world ended in March. And you’ve have continued to thrive even under the daily burden of 2021’s collective existential crisis.
You’re a bunch of smarties, and now you need someone to help deliver a focused, delightful user experience for your audience.
I work with smart, ethical brands who want to make a positive impact on their audiences’ lives.
And since I’m not just a UX content strategist, but a designer/developer/copywriter, you’re getting someone who understands how great content lifts every stage of your user experience.
My employers and clients have consistently enjoyed higher conversion rates, more customer retention, and other benefits you’d hope to see from a good content strategist.
Use the menu to jump right to a section, or just start scrolling.
About Me
Matt Hall, MBA
UX Content Strategist/Copywriter
Co-founder of Common People Web Design and jack of all trades, Matt has been building websites since the days of dial-up. That’s why he understands the value of a thorough, research-based content strategy.
In addition to being a seasoned WordPress expert, he’s also a senior conversion copywriter and pretty decent web designer, giving him a unique eye for what works on the web (and why).
Matt knows your web design project is an investment into your business, so he works hard to ensure you’ll get a positive ROI from your project.
With broad experience working with clients like Kajabi, Auction.com, Intel, Panasonic, Feedly, and many other tech, SaaS, and startup brands, Matt’s able to guide your project towards measurable success.
Selected Experience
Here’s what I’ve worked on recently.
Most Recent
Enterprise Content Strategy + UX Copywriting
Most recently, Matt’s been heads down consulting and providing content strategy/UX/copywriting services for multiple enterprise clients.
For example, one project required the new site experience to speak to multiple audience segments. The catch? Each audience segment was a different group of highly-educated medical professionals. This required carefully balancing the tone and approach of the site content so it simultaneously respected the audience’s expertise, but still led them down an intentional path.
Another project was leading content strategy for a CMS migration, ecommerce functionality buildout, and site redesign for a multi-billion-dollar semiconductor company.
This project required designing multiple user experience flows, crafting in-app microcopy, and working closely with the client to ensure alignment with their business’s unique requirements.
One more wrinkle: the site had to deliver measurable improvements over the existing experience. But the audience – experienced mechanical and electrical engineers – doesn’t respond well to “salesy” copy or design.
As a result, Matt’s team took an approach that balanced clear page design, intentional user paths, and tightly-integrated horizontal linking to ensure users could reach the right content for the next stage in their journeys.
Need to know more about my unique, broad experience? A 10-minute phone call will likely tell you everything you need to know about whether we’re a good fit for your next project. Book a time to chat.
Other Experience
Feeding San Diego
Nonprofit
Feeding San Diego, affiliated with Feeding America, provides more than 31.2 million meals per year to those facing hunger in San Diego County.
After the coronavirus pandemic hit, the organization reached out to our team. Feeding San Diego needed a refreshed, streamlined content experience to drive additional donations while making it easier to find help.
Our team worked with Feeding San Diego to conduct stakeholder and user interviews, redefine the information architecture for their site, and rewrite the entire site’s content.
We also redesigned key pages and page templates, then implemented these changes on their WordPress staging server.
The result is a much more focused user experience that drives site visitors through a clear journey.
Spotio
B2B SaaS
Refreshing a brand is hard. Refreshing a brand while redefining a company’s space in a crowded industry? Even harder.
Spotio reached out to Common People for content strategy consulting, web design, and development. We assembled a team of an expert motion graphics artist and graphic designer.
Then we got to work.
Collaborating closely with a copywriter, we developed wireframes, mockups, and the final page templates across a variety of content types. This included:
- Defining a new information architecture for their user experience
- Conducting user interviews
- Developing content models
- Developing and assigning page templates
…and more. The result is a site that blends engaging visual design (including demonstrative motion graphics) with conversion-focused site architecture. So far, this has helped increase the quality and quantity of leads generated through the site.
Kajabi – Marketing Site
SaaS, Online Business Platform
A leading all-in-one business platform for online businesses, Kajabi had grown significantly in both user base and feature set. It needed to refresh how it told its story to both new potential users and existing customers who might not be aware of all its cool new features.
(It costs 7 times less to retain an existing customer, after all.)
I led a team of designers and developers to craft a conversion-focused reimagining of Kajabi’s marketing site. This included:
- Streamlining and minimizing navigation options to create a deliberate conversion journey
- Highlighting the highest impact products and features
- Telling a story based around the real humans using the platform to maximize social proof
- Implementing subtle motion effects to emphasize platform functions and continuously re-engage users throughout the messaging experience
The result? A conversion rate lift of more than 30% over baseline.
Kajabi – Help Center
SaaS, Online Business Platform
Excellent self-serve help & support experiences are critical for customer retention. They also significantly reduce the burden and cost of customer support centers.
But developing a help center that meets the needs of current customers, prospective customers, and even customer support team members poses quite the challenge. Plus, the help center needed to be sustainable and maintainable. Otherwise, content would get out of date – and customers would get frustrated.
Seeing the need to elevate Kajabi’s help center experience, I approached the VP of Customer Success and volunteered my services. I worked closely with his team to achieve the following:
- Redefining the information architecture so Help Center and Marketing content were aligned
- Developing content models that virtually any customer support rep could follow
- Creating a revision calendar to ensure content was regularly reviewed and updated
- Designed wireframes so each Help Center page contributed to the overall user journey
- Provided technical advising on their migration to Zendesk
Here’s what Kajabi Lead Technical Documentation Specialist David G. had to say:
“When we realized we needed to revamp our help center, the task seemed overwhelming. There was so much content, and we had a small team to go through and sift through it all. Matt stepped in and organized our priority process, helped create a clear style guide to bring consistency throughout our work, and a method for editing our content to meet a new standard.”
Kajabi – Brand Guide
SaaS, Online Business Platform
As the company’s content creation teams grew, there was a need for Marketing, Sales, Product, Support, and other functions to speak with a unified, customer-centric voice.
I led the Brand Guide revamp where we turned a two-page “Writing tips” doc into a fully-fledged brand voice guide. This included;
- Working with stakeholders to clarify brand positioning and storytelling
- Developing clear guiding principles, voice and tone standardsm, grammar and mechanics rules, and other key brand voice elements
- Crafting the Brand Guide microcopy in a way that was accessible, clear, and representative of the company voice
- Collaborating with designers to visually represnt our information in the most effective way possible
Because Learning!
SaaS, Hardware, Online Education Platform
A startup serving educators and parents, Because Learning engaged us to help improve their messaging during a rebrand.
After an initial audit, it was clear the website’s framework – Ruby on Rails – wasn’t the right fit for their team’s marketing needs.
(We can’t all be developers, after all.)
During this project, I designed and built a new WordPress-based website to reflect their updated branding. I also applied the same design language and updated messaging throughout their network of sites – including a Shopify store and a custom lesson portal.
Now, instead of the site being attractive but low-converting, it led users on a clear journey through the Because Learning site, communicating the vibrant fun and value of the brand along the way.
The result? Because Learning was able to secure key partnerships with educational institutions across the world. The company now serves educators in 400 schools across 30 countries. It also ran a successful crowdfunding campaign that exceeded funding goals by 400%.
Auction.com
Tech, real estate
As one the nation’s leading online real estate marketplace, Auction.com serves a variety of audiences with specific use cases. When I came aboard the Auction.com team, one of the chief challenges was a disconnect between the marketing and product teams. I worked closely with their staff content strategist as a UX consultant to help bridge the product experience and messaging between departments.
One of our successful projects was applying user research, stakeholder interviews, and site analytics to determine how to improve the bidder registration. This step was a critical determinant for whether a user would successfully complete a transaction on the platform or not. Our results delivered a statistically significant lift in completed transactions.
Another project was repositioning the Auction.com Help Center as a multi-functional resource for users, sales teams, and marketing. I led the content strategy and creation for this project. This included setting measurable project goals and objectives, reviewing data (including user research and analytics) to establish information architecture, running user tests on proposed wireframes, and creating page content.
Santa Clara University School of Law
Legal education, tech law
A tech-focused law program, Santa Clara Law is based in Silicon Valley and home to nationally-recognized legal clinics including the Entrepreneur’s Law Clinic and the High Tech Law Institute. Anticipating a drop in applications due to national trends, I was engaged to develop a user experience-focused journey through a refreshed website design. This included:
- Migrating the WordPress installation from on-premise to WP Engine
- Developing a new site design based on updated brand standards
- Taking a B2B marketing-style approach to create messaging that led audience segments through specially-tailored journeys through the site (such as prospective students or donors)
With my work, the school was able to not only meet but exceed admissions expectations by nearly 9%. Additional projects later included developing a conversion-focused microsite that helped secure over $25MM in funds raised.
Work Samples
I have more examples of my work available upon request. Please schedule a time to discuss reviewing work samples over an encrypted Zoom call.
Site Microcopy
Kajabi
Examples of site microcopy I wrote as part of the marketing site redesign. When writing microcopy, my goals are always:
- Ensure next actions are clear
- Future-pace next steps when needed to reduce cognitive load throughout the journey
- Use language that reflects the brand voice and tone
Here are some samples of the microcopy I worte while leading Kajabi’s copywriting team.
User Journey Mapping, Wireframes, & Microcopy
Auction.com
The world of distressed property auctions is full of unique terminology, difficult-to-understand financial concepts, and regulatory requirements. This needed to all be reflected in the user onboarding flows developed for a new online auction service offering.
Our team collaborated with stakeholders to define user journeys, run user tests, design wireframes, and write microcopy.
I wrote the microcopy for this experience and collaborated with the senior UX designer to create the wireframes. This resulted in us simplifying a complicated buyer flow which seamlessly integrated logged in/logged out states, registration abandon email sequences, accepting terms and conditions, and other legal/payment processor requirements.
After several rounds of user feedback and design iterations, the new experience successfully went live.
Podcast Guest Appearances & Training
I do a bit of podcast guesting and speaking.
The Copywriter Club in Real Life
Speaker, “Think Bigger, Do Better, Get More: Get a Fastpass for your corporate copywriting career.“
The Quiet Rebels Podcast
Guest, "Making a Bigger Impact as a Small Business Owner"
The Copywriter Club
Guest, “4 Ways to Work as a Copywriter with Matt Hall” (#6 most downloaded episode of 2019)
Chatting with Copywriters
Guest, “How Design and Copy Work Together (Part 1 and Part 2)”
I’ve also delivered trainings for:
- Copyhackers (“How to Have a Career in UX”)
- Maker Masterclass (“Crafting the Perfect Message for Your Online Store”)
- The Copywriter Club (“Building a High-Performing Copywriter Website”)
- Confident Copywriting (“Using Jobs to be Done to Design the Perfect Copywriter Website with Matt Hall”)
- Whomp Whoomp to Wow: “WW2W Bonus: Create a Memorable High ROI Design for Your Copy with Matt Hall”
…and others.
I also teach a Digital Marketing Bootcamp at several universities across the US through ThriveDX.
Next Steps
Ready to Get Started?
Want to chat about working together? Then just hit the “Let’s get started!” button.
You’ll be taken to my calendar scheduling link so your team can book a call when you’re ready.
Thanks for taking the time to review my samples. I’m excited to learn more about how I can help support your team’s messaging strategy and achieve your business goals.
Sincerely,
Matt Hall, MBA
Founder, Common People Web Design
PS: Don’t forget to hit the big red button above when you’re ready to book a call!