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Everyone is looking for more marketing budget. As the well-known song goes: “You can’t always get what you want.” To even make the case for more budget, you need to show how your current marketing contributes to filling your school’s enrollment class with the right number of ideal students. 

The first place to start is determine where your marketing budget and efforts are giving you a return, and where they can be better spent. This way, regardless of whether you get a budget increase, you’ll still find more money to spend more wisely in your current budget.

To identify where to allocate your current budget to better effect, you need to:

• Be clear on what you’re currently spending
• Understand how much it costs to acquire each enrolled student
• Determine your current ROI on your efforts

How Are You Using Your Budget Now?

Small team or big team, hopefully you have a formal marketing budget that spells out what you’re spending for all your content and campaigns. Take a look at these sample marketing budget templates to get an idea of what you should to include. 

Don’t overlook the cost of what other departments contribute in terms of creating content for your campaigns. You can include those numbers in your budget for purposes of identifying actual costs, even if this sort of inter-departmental exchange isn’t a formal cost item on your marketing budget.

Now there are other costs associated with getting a prospect to become an applicant, and still more to become an enrolled student. You only want to include the marketing costs. So for example, you don’t want to include the costs of Admission’s activities throughout the enrollment journey. That’s on their budget, and you’re trying to reclaim your own dollars.

Start with a list of all your discrete and ongoing campaigns. This includes every piece of your blog, newsletters, email nurturing series, premium content, and landing pages, as well as your PPC ad spend and social media efforts. We’re talking about costs for photos, graphic design, copywriting — anything and everything from student labor to hard dollars for advertising.

Understanding Your Student Acquisition Costs

In a commercial context, businesses always want to know their CAC – client acquisition cost. The economics for schools are different, even if you’re a for-profit school. But you still have an acquisition cost for each student you enroll.

The formula for determining the marketing CAC is to divide your total marketing budget by the number of enrolled students. So if you have 2,000 students in one enrollment class and an annual marketing of $200,000, your marketing CAC is $100 per enrolled student.

The marketing CAC is the baseline metric you use to get make decisions about what specific marketing campaigns and costs are more valuable than others. 

Re-assess your CAC each year to find how it changes. As you expand and refine your inbound marketing efforts, you’ll find your cost of acquiring new students continues to goes down with time. A robust inbound strategy helps your school develop a strong online reputation through the awesome content you keep publishing over time. You’ll continue to reap the benefits from your established authority and historical content, making inbound the most cost-effective method of filling your enrollment class with the right students.

Determining ROI for Specific Marketing Campaigns

This is where the heavy lifting comes in. You want to understand your budget costs, but also the relative cost of your team’s efforts. If your team doesn’t track its time, here are some time tracking tools you can look at. When you know how many hours are spent on a campaign, you can assign the effort expended on it in dollar terms.

The trickier part is knowing how much of your marketing effort and spend contribute to a student enrolling. You probably already gauge the success for specific campaigns using other metrics, such as new leads, applications downloaded, or applications sent in. You probably set a goal for each campaign based on one of these conversion metrics.

But what you want to know now is how much a campaign contributed to an enrolled student. It’s truly the only success metric that really matters to you and your boss.

For this, you need to attribute specific campaigns as the reason(s) a student ultimately enrolled at your school.

There are three basic models of marketing attribution:

Single campaign – This is the simplest, but crudest model. It can be a good place to start attribution when it’s new for your team. Under this attribution model, you select one marketing touch point to get the full value of a student. This would typically be either that student’s first or last touchpoint.

Equal value – Also a simple model, but uses more data. You give every touchpoint for a student the same value. Or you might decide to use only the first and last touch, but give them equal weight.

Weighted value – In this model, different touch points have different weights. This is best done after you’ve been tracking attribution for a few enrollment drives. You may find that a high percentage of students watch a webinar at some point, but only a small fraction of people who read the blog ultimately enroll. So you’ll weight attending a webinar more heavily than reading your blog. 

Let’s play this out using the single campaign model, using the first touch point you can identify, which is the point at which they entered your database.

If 10% of your enrolled students got into your database because they subscribed to your newsletter, your newsletter is their first touch point. Now let’s say you spend $30,000 of your annual marketing spend on your newsletter, 15% of your annual budget. But that 15% accounts for only 10% of all enrolled students. 

You’re spending $150 a year on your newsletter per enrolled student ($30,000/ 200 students). That’s well above your overall CAC.  In this case, you might decide sending out your newsletter twice a month, instead of weekly, frees up time and money you can use running other more effective campaigns. 

You can apply the single campaign model on every campaign. Then start aggregating what you learn. One email nurturing campaign may have a high CAC, but overall, your email campaigns do well. In that case, analyze the campaigns to discover what causes the discrepancy and do more of what works, less of what doesn’t. 

As you get used to running single campaign attribution formulas, you’ll learn more about the value of your marketing activities to use the more precise attribution models to learn even more.

Then you can sing along with the Rolling Stones as you rework your current budget: “But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”

We often talk about optimizing your website and optimizing your marketing … but what about optimizing your day?

Think about all the things you do in a given day, from eating meals and cleaning your apartment to brainstorming ideas and holding meetings. Believe it or not, there’s an optimum time of day to complete every single one of these activities.

A lot of it has to do with taking advantage of your body’s natural rhythms. For example, neuroscientists recommend waiting until 9:30 a.m. to drink your morning coffee because that’s when your stress levels tend to drop, and you really don’t need the caffeine boost until afterward. Others have to do with weekly schedules: Studies also show that scheduling meetings at 3:00 p.m., especially on Tuesdays, increases the likelihood of high attendance.

What other activities have an optimum time in the day? Check out the infographic below from NetCredit for a full list.

Makeovers aren’t just for 80’s movie montages — they’re also an important way for brands to future proof, reach new audiences, and remain relevant in competitive markets.

But changing up your entire image comes with considerable risks — especially for bigger, more established brands. If you pivot too far away from your core identity too fast, you could alienate your base audience. But if the changes aren’t big enough, no one will notice.

If you’re considering shaking up your brand and could use some guidance on the line between not enough and too much change, we’re here to help. Let’s explore how six major companies were able to refresh their well-established brands for the better.

6 Successful Big Brand Makeovers

1) Kentucky Fried Chicken

In an appeal to millennials, the ubiquitous chicken chain recently resurrected the goateed visage of their founder and original mascot, Colonel Sanders, to appear in print, TV, and social ads.

Colonel Sanders — the real man behind the brand — appeared in KFC ads until close to his death in 1980. In his trademark white suit and western bowtie, Sanders’ big personality and natural salesmanship proved to be pivotal in the fast food franchise’s success.

During the 1990s and 2000s, KFC pivoted away from their founder’s iconic image, first phasing out actors who played Sanders and then removing the animated version of him as well. The mascot-free look was accompanied by a push to focus more on the quality of the brand’s food, staff, and American roots under the slogan “So good.”

But the company soon realized that the Sanders-free KFC didn’t resonate well with the coveted millennial set. So in 2015, KFC brought on global ad agency Wieden + Kennedy for a much needed brand facelift to boost sales and increase engagement.

The new colonel — who has been played by a number of actors over the last year, including Darrell Hammond and George Hamilton — is a quirky, patriotic spokesman for the brand. And even though not everyone loves him, KFC is happy that they’ve got people talking about them again.

“So far the response has been about 80% positive, 20% hate it,” said KFC’s parent company’s CEO Greg Creed. “Now they at least have an opinion. They’re actually talking about KFC, and you can market to love and hate; you cannot market to indifference.”

2) AXE

AXE is no stranger to controversy. The male grooming brand has been slammed in the past for ads featuring hordes of scantily clad women appearing whenever a man applies body spray. Their ads have found their way onto many sexist campaign roundups, including Adweek’s Most Sexist Ads of 2013.

This year, AXE’s parent company Unilever decided to make a big change, vowing to drop sexist messaging and stereotypes in all their ads. This has signaled a completely new direction for AXE.

“Masculinity today is going through seismic changes. More than ever, guys are rejecting rigid male stereotypes,” Matthew McCarthy, the senior director of Axe and men’s grooming at Unilever said to Adweek. “We’ve been part of guys’ lives for decades, and Axe champions real guys and the unique traits that make them attractive to the world around them.”

In their latest campaign by Amsterdam’s 72andsunny, AXE changes up their usual formula of six-pack abs and heterosexual pursuit, opting instead for a broad and inclusive representation of masculinity.

3) The Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP)

If you picked up a magazine or flipped on the TV in the 1990s or 2000s, you were likely to see a celebrity proudly brandishing a milk mustache with the tagline, “Got Milk?”

Developed by ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the “Got Milk?” ads are commonly cited as one of the most iconic marketing campaigns of all time. For nearly 20 years, MilkPEP used the slogan to promote the consumption of dairy milk nationally.

But the pervasiveness of “Got Milk?” couldn’t stop dairy milk sales from slumping beneath the growing popularity of dairy-free nut milk in 2014. “The milk industry has had a tough bill over the last few years. Consumers seem to be forgetting about milk,” Julia Kadison, the then-interim CEO of MilkPEP said to USA Today. “They needed to be educated or reminded of the nutritional value of milk.”

The decline in dairy milk sales prompted MilkPEP to stop producing “Got Milk?” ads in favor of an updated “Milk Life” campaign. The $50 million revamp by New York’s Lowe Campbell Ewald puts the focus on regular people instead of celebrities, and highlights dairy milk’s high protein content. Another series of Milk Life ads try to differentiate dairy milk from popular alternatives like almond milk.

4) Buick

To shake off their grandfatherly image and appeal to younger drivers, Buick re-launched several updated versions of their cars in 2014, along with a new, hilariously self-aware advertising campaign.

The “That’s a Buick?” TV spots, which began in 2014, played on Buick’s older, out-of-touch image, showing unbelieving consumers that the sleek, modern car in front of them was actually a Buick.

“We’re attacking that false familiarity directly, because we’ve got this new portfolio now,” US Vice President of Marketing for Buick, Tony DiSalle, said to Automotive News today. “We know that consumers’ perception takes a long time to change.”

The ads were produced by DigitasLBi, and deftly introduced the fresher, cooler side of the car company. And in 2016, Buick is taking things even further into millennial territory, enlisting the help of up-and-coming comedians Ellie Kemper and Max Greenfield to give the brand an edge.

5) GoDaddy

Known for their bawdy, provocative ad campaigns, the domain registrar and web hosting company has made deliberate steps away from their macho image in recent years, choosing instead to focus on the small business owners who depend on their services.

For years, GoDaddy’s marketing seemed centered around the adage that “all press is good press.” They stoked controversies left and right with their racy television spots, and many of their ads were denounced as sexist. GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving even revealed in a New York Times interview that a group of female small business owners were pressuring Etsy to stop doing business with GoDaddy because of their ads’ portrayals of women.

Under the helm of CMO Phil Bienert and with direction from global ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day New York, the company’s advertising is now pivoting to better serve their real target demographic — female small business owners.

“We’ve had some famous, very notable messaging in the past, and as we’ve evolved in the U.S. — where 58% of small businesses are owned by women — we’ve had advertising that reflects who the audience is, getting away from the tactics we’ve done [before],” Bienert said to AdAge.

GoDaddy’s latest ads depict funny, fictionalized accounts of small business owners, such as an artist who designs little hats for cats.

6) Bud Light

In 2016, the beer of choice for football games and college parties received its first rebrand in 15 years, along with a humorous new series of ads parodying the presidential election.

The new logo and can design is decidedly less sporty and more reminiscent of craft beer label trends. In a nod to their parent company’s 160-year-old brewing tradition, a retro Anheuser-Busch crest appears front and center. The composition might be a nod to original Budweiser packaging, but the reimagined packaging is intended to appeal to a new generation of beer drinkers.

“Anheuser-Busch is seeking to find the right look and messaging to attract more millennial drinkers, who may have never even consumed Bud Light, while maintaining brand loyalty among established drinkers of the brand,” Eric Shepard, the executive editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights, told Entrepreneur.

Despite being the dominant beer on the American market, Bud Light has seen sales slip in the face of craft beer’s growing popularity. Along with their craft-beer-esque packaging revamp, they’re also updating their sense of humor to align with modern tastes.

“If you look at the humor that was relevant back in the ‘80s, ‘90s, early 2000s, it was very different than the humor that is [relevant] right now,” Bud Light vice president Alexander Lambrecht said to Business Insider.

Bud Light’s newest commercials were created by Wieden + Kennedy, and focus on a fictional political party — The Bud Light Party, naturally — led by comedians Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen. The topical ads take a relaxed but direct approach to politics, with Rogen and Schumer throwing their support behind gay marriage, equal pay, and of course, beer.

“We don’t care, we’ll sell you a beer!” Rogan says in one of the spots promoting gender identity.

Feature image from AXE’s “Find Your Magic” ad, via Fast Company.

If recent marketing news has made one thing clear, it’s this: Mobile is non-negotiable.

A growing number of us are using mobile as our primary device for accessing the internet — over a quarter of us interact with our smartphones more than any other object, or human being, for that matter. And content, in kind, has to fit that format, whether we’re consuming it or discovering it for the first time.

Brands are starting to respond to that. Just last week, for instance, Google announced that non-mobile friendly pages will be ranking even lower next year.

Apps will be especially impacted most by this increasingly widespread mobile use. The push notifications we receive on our devices will play a vital role in the information we come across, and if we choose to consume it.

Many of us are already receiving information that way. In 2015, the average opt-in rate for push notifications was 49.8%. But those messages have to be optimized — otherwise, brands risk being ignored or forgotten.

Why is that, exactly, and how can it be avoided? Read on to discover the types of push notifications your users actually want to receive — and how each one will benefit both of you.

7 Types of Push Notifications Your Users Actually Want

1) The ones that are encouraging — not shaming.

Once upon a time, I had an activity-tracking bracelet. It was connected by Bluetooth to my phone, where I could use an app to log workouts and meals.

One day, when I hadn’t worked out for a while as a result of having the flu, I received a push notification from the app.

“You haven’t been your active self lately,” it said. “Log a workout now.”

I can’t be the only one who would feel a little bit judged by a message like that, even if it was automated. I mean, was this app serious? I had the flu! No wonder health and fitness app have the lowest opt-in rate for push notifications — they shame their users.

That doesn’t have to be the case — nor is it, for every health and fitness app out there. There are some, like 12 Minute Athlete, that let users schedule their own workout reminders. (And if you’re sick, you don’t have to schedule any.) Then, when it does come time for your workout, you get a notification that encourages you, instead of making you feel guilty.

Source: 12 Minute Athlete

Most health and fitness apps are traditionally created with a somewhat shared goal: To help their users get better at doing something. And one of the most ineffective ways of doing that? Feeling bad about not doing it. In fact, research has shown that it’s self-compassion and forgiveness that make us correct negative behaviors — not guilt.

Consider giving your users the option of taking a break. That can be applied to a variety of app categories: Health and fitness, dating, or online shopping. Let them determine how long they want that hiatus to be — and feel free you set your own parameters for how long that can actually go on. Then, send a push notification to ask them if they’re ready to come back. That will remind them to launch the app, keeping them engaged after they’ve stepped away.

2) The ones that make life a little easier.

I’m one of those people who has to put everything in my calendar. But the one thing I never seem to remember scheduling is an online check-in for my flights.

That’s why I absolutely love it when airline apps remind me to check in 24 hours in advance — and maybe that’s one reason why travel and transportation apps have the highest push notification opt-in rate.

Many airlines notify passengers to check in via email, but let’s face it — with text messages outweighing email as the preferred method of communication by 23%, chances are that we’re looking at these quick notifications more than we’re checking our email.

JetBlue is one airline that does this particularly well. Like clockwork, I always receive a friendly little note on my screen — “Hey there. It’s time to check in for your flight” — exactly 24 hours before I’m scheduled to take off. It’s one less thing that I have to remember to do and, therefore, these particular notifications are adding value for me.

Ask yourself that question before you write copy for a push notification: How can we frame this in a way that creates value for the user? You’ll be glad you did — users who opt-in to push messages average three times more app launches than those who opt out.

3) The ones that know where its users are — in a non-creepy way.

When Localytics asked mobile users which type of push notifications they preferred the most, 34% responded with “a special offer based on my location” — the third most popular kind.

And why not? If you’re already out, you might as well treat yourself with that special discount, right?

Take this notification from Neoshop. It’s personalized on two levels — it includes the user’s first name, and it lets him know that there’s a shop location nearby where he can use some of the credits he’s accumulated.

Source: Business 2 Community

Knowing where your users are and responding in kind accomplishes two things: First, it lets them know that you’re paying attention. You’re not watching them in a Big-Brother-ish way — you’re looking out for them, and for opportunities around them.

Second, offering them something special based on that information can make your brand relatable — like a friend texting to say, “I’m in your neighborhood. Wanna get coffee?”

That’s another way to add value for your user. Instead of asking them to go out of their way to engage with you, you’re creating an opportunity when it’s convenient to them. That makes it easy for someone to find a reason to launch your app — and to remember that they have unused rewards.

4) The ones that get people excited about something.

There are also occasions when you might not be where you want to be — like a warm beach in the middle of winter, for example. And, there are times when a push notification can help you get there — like with a cheap airfare alert.

Kayak, a travel search site, allows its users to set their own notification criteria — based on destination, date, or popular places to travel — and receive an alert when the price for any of those trips drops below a point of their choosing.

Source: Arkenea

There are few things that thrill me more than a good deal on airfare. And when it’s Kayak who lets me know about that deal, I associate that brand with my excitement.

And that makes sense — “a special offer based on my preferences” was the #1 preferred type of push notification in 2015. The reward is twofold: Not only are your users receiving information that’s perceived as a great deal, but it’s the result of something they were able to dictate. There’s a return on their investment in your app — and they got to call the shots on what that return would look like.

There are several verticals that could stand to benefit from this strategy. It’s the positive association I mentioned before that really stands out — just as it is with location-based alerts, these notifications send the message that your brand is looking out for its users. It’s as if the app is saying, “I know you mentioned that you were looking for one of these, so I picked it up for you.”

It’s thoughtful, right? And since 52% of us prefer gifts that are truly considerate in that way, it seems fitting that we would respond well to brands that behave accordingly.

So think about what’s really going to excite your users. Let your audience determine what they deem rewarding by letting them customize preferences. When you plan your push notifications, having that information will help craft the message that your app is going out of its way to benefit its users.  

5) The ones that alert people to what matters to them.

It might seem like we’re a bit overwhelmed with bad news these days — so much, in fact, that WNYC put together a Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook. As much as we like to stay informed, we also like the opportunity to tune some things out.

But what about the rest of what’s happening in the world — the stuff that we want to stay in the loop for? At risk of sounding cliché: There’s an app for that.

The Oregon Public Broadcasting app set a great example for how push notifications can be used for this kind of content distribution and promotion. “We’re not singularly a breaking news app,” said OPB’s Marketing Director, Paul Loofburrow, “but if there’s a public service announcement, we want to share that.”

Instead, the app uses push notifications to alert listeners to live broadcasts, encouraging them to tune in. And it works — after sending these alerts, OPB saw a 483% increase in users listening to a specific radio broadcast.

Source: Urban Airship

Medium, an online publishing platform, uses push notifications in a similar way. Users can receive an instant alert when someone they follow publishes a new post — and can decide if they want to Medium to select the top five posts of this kind, instead of receiving a notification every time something new is published. And if they want, users can also opt to receive notifications for stories that Medium recommends, based on their reading history. 

Breaking News is another app that has quite a few content customization features. It lets users decide what they want brought to their attention, and when they want to hear about it. There’s an option to disable notifications for “major stories,” as well as a way to set “quiet time,” when no news alerts will be sent.

Source: Breaking News

But here’s where the real value comes in — the features that allow users to pick the topics they want to know about.

Source: Breaking News

That level of personalization is a tremendous asset to your audience. In fact, users are three times more likely to respond to a notification that directly affects them, as opposed to an alert that might have been sent to everybody.

Depending on what sort of information is shared by your app, a best practice could be to let users pick and choose what they want to know about. And, instead of only giving them the chance to turn off notifications completely, let them choose a time of day when they don’t want to be disturbed.

6) The ones that help people pick up where they left off.

You’ve walked into a room with an intention. But then, something distracts you. The phone rings, someone’s shouting your name for your attention, and by the time that distraction has passed, you’ve forgotten why you walked into that room in the first place.

That scenario often plays out when we’re using apps. Let’s say I’m using a grocery delivery app to place an order, when someone sends me a text message. If leave the app to respond, I’m probably going to forget what I was doing before that message came in, and neglect to finish my order. That’s no surprise, since studies now reveal that we have a shorter attention span than most goldfish — largely due to smartphone use.

But Instacart is one app that helps me remember to finish a task. If I abandon my shopping cart without checking out, for example, it sends me this friendly reminder:

How convenient! Not only do I now remember that I need to order my groceries, but I don’t have to wait that long for them to be delivered, either.

This example goes back to the idea of making life easier for your users. But in this case, instead of being reminded of a specific, salient event — like a trip or flight somewhere — the app is helping me stay on top of my day-to-day tasks and responsibilities.

When you design your push notifications, keep two things in mind:

1. How busy are your users?
2. Is this alert going to help them, or just distract and disrupt them?

Answering those questions will help you prioritize the alerts you want to send to your users, and limit the amount of overload they perceive from your app.

7) The ones that keep people posted.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the “hangry” phenomenon — an adjective that Dictionary.com defines as “irritable as a result of feeling hungry.”

When you combine the cultural pervasiveness of hangriness with the fact that more and more of us are ordering meals online (by 2020, it’s predicted that mobile ordering will be a $38 billion industry), the outcome is as follows: We really, really want to know when our food will arrive.

That’s why it’s smart for what Business Insider calls “aggregators” — platforms like GrubHub and Eat24 that allow users to order online from dozens of different outlets — to incorporate a live delivery update feature, to let us know when our food is on its way.

Source: Localytics

Source: AllThingsD

It’s important to note that we’re becoming a species of instant gratification — 43% of us think it’s unacceptable to take more than 10 minutes to respond to a text message, for example. And whether we like that direction or not, it’s important for businesses to adapt, especially in the mobile sector.

If your app requires your users to wait for something, ask yourself:

1. Am I making my users wait longer than they want or should have to?
2. Am I keeping my users posted about what they’re waiting for?
3. Am I updating my users to the point that I’m becoming disruptive?
4. Do my users have a way to reach me if they need more information after I update them?

Those last two points stress the importance of striking the right balance with push notifications. Share just enough information so that your users aren’t left completely in the dark while they’re waiting. And if they need more details, make sure there’s an easy way for them to get in touch with you.

Ready to start notifying?

There are a few tools out there that can help you create and implement push notifications. A few of our favorites:

• Roost: Roost provides a number of solutions for both desktop and mobile apps. Its biggest selling point is likely the ease of implementation, which largely consists of cutting and pasting a line of JavaScript into your code.
• Amazon Web Services: Among Amazon’s many developer tools is its SNS Mobile Push Notifications feature. Like other platforms of its kind, this feature allows notifications to be sent individually (to one person at a time), or to multiple users at once.
• OneSignal: OneSignal is a notification service that’s used by several apps that need to provide real-time updates to their users — think Uber (“where’s my ride?”). It also allows A/B testing, so that marketers can send two different messages to samples of user groups and see which one performs better.

When it comes to creating push notifications, there’s an unspoken golden rule: Alert others as you would like to be alerted.

These notifications are absolutely crucial to your mobile marketing strategy — users that enable them are 171% more engaged with the app than those who don’t. But choose them wisely.

When in doubt, we find it’s helpful to use a checklist. So make sure your push notifications meet these basic criteria:

• They aren’t redundant or disruptive to your users.
• They keep your users informed of the things they want to know.
• They’re thoughtful — they keep an eye out and make life a little more convenient for users, without seeming overbearing or clingy.
• They encourage users — and don’t shame them.

How do you use push notifications? Share it with us in the comments.