North Orange Continuing Education (NOCE) offers a wide range of educational programs including high school completion, English-Language acquisition, career education, and self-development courses. NOCE serves 38,000 students annually at three campus locations in Orange County, California.
As NOCE’s community emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an ongoing need to improve student engagement and support their ability to thrive in an online/virtual environment. Individualized student guidance, a vital NOCE value promise, is difficult to deliver online, and there is a need to imagine new ways to support students.
As a long-time partner, GradComm continues to help NOCE enhance the way it reaches students, both online and in their communities, with projects to engage students and ultimately improve student success.
GradComm has developed multi-faceted projects that build upon each other to improve the student experience, elevate the NOCE brand and support enrollment initiatives.
GradComm wrote and designed a 16-page viewbook that showcases the college’s Career Education programs and NOCE as an institution of choice for potential students. The viewbook included images and infographs that showcase student and college successes as well as factoids that demonstrate potential earnings and job opportunities in each pathway.
To support spring enrollment, GradComm targeted NOCE’s diverse population with targeted ads on buses and Spanish radio. In three locations in the region, buses and radio are great tactics to help keep awareness of NOCE’s offerings moving around the area.
This project aimed to improve awareness of class and program offerings, engage with all community audiences and ultimately increase enrollment. Mailed to all homes in the service area, the schedule is a high-reach marketing tool that puts information about all NOCE’s programs directly into the hands of potential students.
A targeted marketing and media plan was developed that included digital and social media advertising, faculty and student testimonials, videos, marketing collateral, and more. These efforts resulted in a 45% increase in program enrollment.
In Progress: Implementation of interactive online maps from which students can click on courses for descriptions and icons to videos to learn about programs and services available at NOCE. The opportunity for individuals to explore NOCE’s program pathways online (and on a mobile device) helps to visualize the steps to completing a certificate.