By Grace Reed
CCC Journalism Program
BLACKWOOD – Camden County College hosted its spring open house on April 7. More than 200 people attended. But between the two open houses it hosts each year, the college utilizes a variety of methods to promote the institution and boost enrollment.
Among them, the college mails letters and postcards to potential applicants and uses Facebook to share information. It also uses Geofencing, which utilizes a person’s location to provide them with area-specific advertisements. The college is also part of Naviance, a company that partners with schools to offer communication between the family and school staff and prepare students for college.
Understanding the audience is key, said the college’s director of communications, Julie Yankanich. The most difficult students to reach are dual-credit students, individuals still in high school but learning in a CCC-approved curriculum.
“Most dual-credit students have already made up their mind on where they want to go after high school,” she said.
CCC’s mailing list comes mostly from the PSAT, which provides institutions like colleges with an opportunity to obtain test takers’ basic contact information, Yankanich said. Despite this massive reach, she still estimated that sponsored advertisements through Facebook and Google are more effective.
Open houses such as those that CCC conducts every spring and summer also help promote the college. Steve D’Ambrosio, the college’s director of admissions, said such events take much planning.
“We start meeting in November for April. At the meetings we get together and go over last year,” he said. Also at the meetings, the event’s planners discuss what they liked about the previous open house and decide on changes they want to make for the upcoming open house. The college begins promoting the spring open house in February.
D’Abrosio said he believed the turnout for the most recent open house was the highest ever at the college.
In addition to the spring and summer open houses, CCC offers other opportunities to interact with the campus. They include year-round campus tours and weekly events, such as Major Discovery and Meet CCC nights, every fall.
Maintaining regular communication with prospective students via email or phone is essential to keeping enrollment up, D’Ambrosio said.
Participants gather in the atrium of the Connector Building on CCC’s Blackwood campus for the open house on April 7. By Grace Reed, CCC Journalism Program