Online Learning

The NACUFS Marketing for Foodservice Course is designed for collegiate dining services managers, marketing coordinators, and administrators with novice to intermediate marketing experience. The course strengthens marketing strategies to boost your dining operation’s visibility and create memorable experiences for your campus community. From building awareness to engaging your guests, it provides the tools you need to succeed.

Throughout the course, you will examine the importance of strategic marketing and effective methods to engage your campus community, raise awareness, and position your department as the go-to dining authority on campus. You will also apply essential marketing skills in planning, data analysis, design, and crisis management, preparing you to meet the challenges of modern dining service marketing with confidence.

The course was developed with input from numerous NACUFS members engaged in marketing and communications for dining programs at eight colleges and universities.

Members: $299

Non-members: $629

Learning Objectives

1. Explore the importance of consistent branding and identity.
2. Understand the concepts that encompass marketing strategies.
3. Explain how to implement a marketing plan in your operation or department.
4. Learn how to utilize multiple formats for varying generations of audiences.
5. Analyze how to measure and assess your plan with strategies to deal with crises, pivot, and celebrate immediate needs.

Modules

1. Creating a Marketing Plan: Learn the importance of having a marketing plan, what is involved in creating one, and strategies to avoid oversaturation.
2. Evaluation: Explore data collection methods, gathering and using feedback, and the role of artificial intelligence in marketing.
3. Design Considerations: Gain basic design skills and learn how to create a style guide to support an overall theme. Build skills in graphics, photography, video, motion graphics, and accessibility.
4. Creating Engagement with Integrated Marketing: Discover strategies for promoting your department and increasing visibility, including entering competitions.
5. Crisis Management: Learn what to do before, during, and after a crisis to prepare and respond effectively.

Now streamlined and conveniently accessible on the NACUFS Learn online platform, Guest Experience for Foodservice is for anyone in collegiate foodservice seeking to optimize the guest experience on their campus. The program aligns with the Guest Experience domain of the NACUFS Collegiate Dining Body of Knowledge™.

What's included with the course: 

• Guest Experience for Foodservice online course
• Guest Experience for Foodservice Workbook and Lesson Plans 
• NACUFS Train the Trainer Program 

In this asynchronous online course, you will learn: 

• The why behind the importance of guest experience.
• The philosophies behind companies with some of the best performing guest experiences, past and present. 
• The concepts that comprise a guest experience philosophy. You will also create these pieces for your own operation. 
• How to implement the new guest experience plan into your operation, including gaining buy-in from your team. 
• How to measure and assess your program and celebrate your successes as you go! 
   

Along with the six-part online course, you will also receive the NACUFS Guest Experience Workbook and Lesson Plans. This document will allow you to build a guest experience plan for your operation while you complete the course and then train your frontline staff in the guest experience with an out-of-the-box training plan. Using this document to train your team will save you time and effort, while drastically improving the guest experience! 

Upon registering for the course, you will receive six months to complete it. Your coursework is available to you anytime, anywhere, through NACUFS Learn! 
 

Pricing:

Members: $299
Non-members: $629

Note: No cancellations or refunds will be offered for Guest Experience for Foodservice. Online registration is preferred, however, a paper registration form is available. 

Expand your knowledge, fill in knowledge gaps, or share inspiration with your team with microlearning videos from the National Association of College & University Food Services (NACUFS).

Microlearning is available on-demand in NACUFS' online community, NACUFS Connect. The NACUFS Microlearning Library will assist you in growing knowledge, within five to ten minutes, in all areas of collegiate foodservice, including those outside of your area of concentration. It’s a quick way to grab a bit of knowledge on any topic! The microlearning topics align with the five domains in the NACUFS Collegiate Dining Body of Knowledge™.

Microlearning videos are a part of the NACUFS online learning program, Elements, and available to all institutional members as a free member benefit.

Interested in sharing your knowledge with NACUFS members? Send your microlearning idea to the NACUFS Learning Team.