How Hometown turns advocates into customers with Typeform

Marketers love to lean into real life events like celebrations, awards, and sporting events to engage with their audiences. But it's all too easy for these kinds of campaigns to fall flat if they lack the X-factor – interactivity. We met a company that is no stranger to embracing innovative ideas to solve unique challenges, and their sports-inspired campaign was a perfect example of how creative engagement can drive real impact. 

Hometown, a leader in the ticketing and event management space for schools, recently discovered the power of Typeform to drive customer referrals and improve marketing performance. By integrating Typeform into their customer journey game plan, they’ve unlocked valuable insights and strengthened their marketing efforts.

Their creative approach to customer engagement led them to enter the Typeform Awards at the end of last year where they walked away with the Marketer of the Year trophy!

A winning combination

In 2024, Hometown set out to explore how a referral program could enhance its marketing efforts. Rather than launching a full-fledged referral program, the company opted to include referrals as part of a strategic campaign tied to a bigger marketing initiative with an emphasis on social proof and peer-to-peer networking. The program made a huge impact, yielding an incredible 75% conversion rate. This success was driven by the strong, interconnected nature of the athletic community, where word-of-mouth recommendations and trust play a crucial role in decision-making. 

Athletic leaders and school administrators often rely on trusted peers when choosing new technology solutions, whether for ticketing, fundraising, or event management. With limited time and resources, school leaders often turn to colleagues who have firsthand experience with a product to ensure it’s reliable and effective. A strong referral from a neighboring school or a fellow Athletic Director carries far more weight than a traditional advertisement, making personal recommendations a key factor in how new technology and services are adopted.

The campaign encouraged participation in various ways, including scheduling a demo, following Hometown on social media, and—most notably—referring friends. 

To execute their vision, Hometown turned to Typeform to build the signup form, ensuring a seamless experience for their community.

The referral program confirmed the strength of peer-to-peer recommendations in Hometown’s  network of schools across the country. These results gave them the insights they needed to begin building an evergreen version of the program – giving their schools a simple and valuable way to share trusted solutions with their peers within their community.

Gaining valuable insights

The referral program wasn’t the first time the team had implemented Typeform. They were already using it to level up their insight surveys, collecting valuable feedback from customers to learn how they can continue providing schools with the best tools and solutions needed to support their programs. 

Based on their learnings from the referral pilot, Hometown chose to add an additional referral-type question into existing forms, asking customers if there was someone in their network they’d like to recommend to Hometown; whether they’re interested in fundraising, ticketing or their newest athletic website solution. This was an opportunity to not only collect valuable feedback, but also continue to provide their customers with access to technology solutions designed specifically for the needs of their schools and districts. 

“We collected 3X more referrals than we anticipated from this initiative, simply by adding a question asking if there was someone from their school or community who would benefit from Hometown. We knew the significance word-of-mouth brings in this space – but the response far exceeded our expectations,” explained Lacy Harvey, VP of Marketing at Hometown. “It was incredible to see our amazing customers so eager to recommend Hometown to their peers, it’s a true testament to the trust and value they’ve found in our solutions,” continued Harvey.

Thanks to Typeform’s logic capabilities, Hometown ensures every survey is easy to use for respondents. And being able to customize the form to match the Hometown brand adds a sense of credibility to the experience.

“Before we publish a survey, we try to put ourselves in the shoes of the recipient and make it as clean, efficient, and as simple as possible. So we challenge ourselves to say, is this as simple as it can possibly be while still giving us the information we need?”

Plus they can automatically send Typeform responses to Salesforce through the integration for quick follow-up. 

“It is just a much more efficient and cleaner way for us to understand what information is coming in, who to route it to, and then take a look at all the responses at once. If a customer takes the time to respond to our survey, it’s our responsibility to follow up promptly – not only to express our gratitude but also to ensure they quickly get the discussion they requested. Whether they’re looking for insights on fundraising or ticketing or hoping to connect a colleague, timely engagement makes all the difference,” explained Harvey.

Championship mindset: Always learning, always improving

Hometown knows that the best teams don’t just play—they analyze, adapt, and grow.

“Your product is only as good as what your customers are really getting out of it. And so it's very important that we understand what they're wanting, where we're hitting the mark, where we aren't hitting the mark. That can inform everything from messaging, to customer service and support, to feature functionality.” says Lacy.

“The more that we learn about our customers or our prospective customers, the better we can serve them. Any opportunity that we have to ask questions, and we ask those questions through Typeform, really helps inform what we're doing.”

By prioritizing customer insights, leveraging peer networks, and keeping their game plan simple but effective, Hometown has created a winning formula.

Feeling inspired? Get started with a referral form template.