Marketing Office
How We Can Help
The mission of the Marketing Office is to support residential dining, retail, and catering operations through strategic marketing, consistent branding, and promotion of events and programs.
Tactically, this means we tell the story of dining at UR and look for ways to highlight what we do, our people, and our mission. We communicate important information to the UR community. We gather data to inform future actions and to better understand our audiences.
Working With Us
The earlier you can involve us in your project, the more we can help. If you have a good idea of what you need but don't have any ideas on how to get there, we can work with you from concept development until the finished product is delivered.
Some crucial elements to think through before beginning any project are as follows:
- Goals: Is the tactic necessary to achieve your goal? Does it justify the use of resources (yours and ours)?
- Timing: To best help you, we need the proper time to be able to generate the work. See below for typical timelines.
- Audience: Identify your target audience/s so that we can determine how best to reach each group.
- Deliverables: Determine quantities of materials that will be needed.
- Call to Action: What action do you want the audience to take?
- Content: Do you have the final details for your project (date, time, location, price, etc.), and have they been approved by your supervisor?
- Budget: Allocate funds for any production costs if applicable.
- Effectiveness: Upon completion, what will you consider a “success” for your project?
Event Planning
The Marketing Office maintains a master marketing calendar of events for Dining Services and is looped into major events happening on campus. If your event is not already on the marketing calendar, please check it to make sure that your efforts are not in direct competition with another event or program.
All Dining events (except Catering) are kept on an Outlook calendar that is shared with our department. You can add this calendar (DiningServices) to your Outlook by following these instructions
Timelines
Advance planning is crucial to having your deliverables ready when needed. Based on our experience, the average minimum lengths of time needed to complete various projects from the day we receive your final and approved content (event details) are outlined below. Keep in mind that no project is ever the same as the last. Timelines are dependent upon the scope of the project and where it fits in the overall marketing calendar with other projects, as well as resources available at that time.
Substantial changes to written copy made after final approval will significantly slow down production turnaround times. If you must make changes, it will delay production. Our office must also give final approval on all materials.
The following times do not include production and shipping from vendors. Printing/production adds an additional 1-3 weeks, based on the complexity of the piece or production process.
| Project | Example | Timing |
| Overall campaign: multiple deliverables to promote an event or program | Signs, social posts, d-flyers, posters, etc., all to promote a single event | Four to eight weeks |
| Brochure | Three to four weeks | |
| Event Signage | Lawn signs, directional signage, station signs, table numbers, etc. | Two to three weeks |
| Invitations, email invitations | Two to three weeks | |
| Poster, Flyer, postcard | One to three weeks | |
| Artwork for promotional items | T-shirts, giveaways, etc. | One to two weeks |
Get Started
To start working with us, please complete a Marketing Request Form. If necessary, we will then plan a meeting to discuss your request and lay out the timeline and next steps.