Dartmouth Dining Case Study

The Company

Dartmouth Dining is a unique operation. While it is a department of Dartmouth College, it is also a profit-driven center with its own goals and initiatives. Considering their various venues mainly serve as daily gathering spaces for students, Dartmouth Dining aims to foster a sense of community while balancing the business objectives of meal plan sales, event attendance, and employee recruitment and retention.

The Situations

In 2019, Dartmouth Dining launched the Ivy Unlimited Plan, the most comprehensive meal plan option yet. To sell these meal plans and combat food insecurity on campus, the Dining team needed to drive buy-in from students and their parents. With a small team juggling multiple responsibilities, they didn’t have the time and expertise to manage communication consistently across channels.

They also faced other challenges, like bringing creativity to their website, which follows a restrictive template. Plus, they wanted to increase awareness and attendance for all the fun events they host. Finally, they needed to attract candidates for open positions in their operations.

The Solutions

Hydrate Marketing partnered with Dartmouth Dining to craft a multi-faceted marketing strategy. Our focus was promoting the Ivy Unlimited Plan. To do so, we created videos explaining the plan’s value, emphasizing the community benefits and convenience for students living on and off campus. We also helped design informational brochures and attended events where we encouraged parents and students to opt into SMS updates.

Secondly, we enhanced Dining’s digital presence, starting with its website. Working within its template constraints and collaborating with IT departments for technical solutions, we added more attractive, engaging, and effective content. We took a similar approach to their social media profiles and posts. These channels have been instrumental in promoting events. 

Another big push has been employment advertising campaigns emphasizing Dining’s unique perks and benefits. Our main tactic is digital ads including Meta and Google. However, we’ve also assisted with traditional media approaches like TV, radio, and bus ads.

Additionally, we continue to assist with new projects as they pop up. For example, we’ve supported the successful launch and re-launch of campus cafés. These efforts have included branding, menu design, and promotional campaigns. We even worked together to conceptualize, design, and print Dining with Dartmouth: The Official Cookbook of Dartmouth College!

The Result

Since hiring Hydrate Marketing, Dartmouth Dining has increased meal plan buy-in and event attendance through comprehensive communication strategies. For example, since 2019, we’ve added approximately 2,880 contacts to the SMS list, improving direct engagement with students and parents. Also, the employment Meta ads have reached more than 768,607 people, generating 677 lead form submissions and 79,397 visits to online application pages. Overall, we’ve streamlined communication processes, allowing Dartmouth Dining to deliver consistent messages across multiple channels to their audiences. Together, we continue to work toward creating meaningful experiences and opportunities for students, employees, and the Dartmouth community.

Let's Chat!