A lifelong Indiana Hoosiers fan, Connor Hitchcock was uninspired by the college gear that was on the market when he wanted to represent his alma mater, Indiana University Bloomington.
So, he began making his own, starting out with stickers carried by local stores in Bloomington and Indianapolis. When the stores asked if he had shirts to pair with the stickers, “I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’” Hitchcock says on this episode of Retail Gets Real. In reality, “I did not have shirts, and had to go learn very quickly how to get shirts made.”
Hitchcock brought in his wife and co-founder Christa to design the shirts, which are based on “thoughtful vintage collegiate apparel, things that mean something to your experience,” whether that’s the logo, the mascot or something else specific to the school.
They set up the new enterprise in their basement, teaching themselves how to screenprint in the early morning hours before going to their day jobs. When the project began to take off, Hitchcock’s boss pulled the young entrepreneur aside and convinced him to go all in, even putting up an initial investment in Homefield.
Today, the direct-to-consumer company has 45 employees, products in over 100 different campus bookstores and more than 200 licenses with colleges across the country.
A big part of Homefield’s success is due to its digital marketing strategy, which uses segmentation analysis and demographics. The brand has a large organic following across Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, with content organically reaching “anywhere from eight to 10 million people.”
Paid digital advertising helps reach specific demographics on other platforms — specifically Facebook. “We know different demographics engage with content differently, and so we know it’s still important to make sure that we’re spending on Meta so they show up on Facebook,” he says.
Homefield also hosts events and pop-ups to meet customers and create an experience they’ll talk about with other alumni and friends. A recent bar activation in New York City for an Indiana/University of Connecticut men’s basketball game attracted a crowd of 400 fans in just two hours — all wearing their Homefield gear.
“The idea is that those 400 people had an experience with us and they’re going to go tell others about it,” he says. “That’s really what I’m going for at the end of the day — word of mouth marketing — because it’s exponential.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more about Hitchcock’s strategy for digital marketing and content creation, how customer service has been one of the keys to growth for Homefield, and the field goal kick that started it all.