Students Arriving in September

A new group of customers every September

Every September, students arrive at colleges and universities in towns and neighbourhoods they do not know. Many have never walked the streets around campus.

Within a week they need a copy shop, a barber, a bike repair, a cheap lunch, and whatever is on the supply list for their courses. They find all of it the same way: a search on a phone.

They have no habits yet and no loyalty to anyone. The businesses that show up, and answer their questions on the spot, become the habit.

The work that decides which businesses those are happens in August, before they arrive.

What a new student searches for

• The nearest one, searched on a phone, often while walking.
• Open now, including evenings and Sundays.
• The price of the one or two things they need.
• A student discount, and how to get it.
• How to get there on foot or by bus.
• Whether you take cards, or only cash.

The second is where many listings let students down. Hours entered years ago, with no evening opening or a Sunday closure that no longer applies, send a student searching at seven o'clock straight past you.

Three places on the map instead of seven

This month Google began showing three businesses in the map results for many local searches, where it used to show up to seven, with a link to see more places.

Fewer businesses are seen at first glance, and a student on a phone, in a hurry, rarely taps through to the longer list.

Nobody can promise a place in the three. What a business can control is whether its listing is complete and correct, so that it plainly matches what is being searched for.

The listing before term

First confirm that someone at the business can still get into Google My Business. Each listing still sits on a Google+ page, and one managed by someone who has left is hard to fix in a hurry.

Check the categories against the words students actually use. A shop listed only under its speciality can miss every search made in plainer terms.

Check the hours for every day of the week, and add recent photographs of the inside as well as the front, so a student knows what to expect.

Many students with iPhones search in Apple's Maps app, which keeps its own business details. Look the business up there and correct anything wrong, and do the same on Bing Places.

A page written for students

Give students one page on your website, linked from the home page and from your listing.

Say what you sell that is on their lists, with prices for the common items. Say what the student discount is and how to claim it: a student card at the till, or a code online.

Give the walk from a point on campus everyone knows, in minutes, and the bus route if there is one.

Then repeat the hours and the payment methods on the page itself, because that is where a student will look.

A worked example

A ribbon and trim shop a few blocks from a college with fashion design and costume programs sells ribbon, lace, braid, piping, elastic and buttons by the metre or the card.

Each September a few new students found it by chance. Most went to a large craft chain two bus rides away, because that was what their phones showed for sewing supplies.

The shop's listing carried a single category about ribbon. Its website never mentioned the college, the programs, or the student discount it had offered at the till for years.

Last week the owner added categories for sewing and craft supplies, the terms students type, and corrected the Sunday hours.

The website gained a page for students, built from supply lists students had brought to the counter in past years.

It names the trims on those lists with their prices, explains the discount, and gives the walk from the college's main entrance.

For the first three weeks of term the shop will stay open until seven on weeknights, and the listing will show those hours for exactly those weeks.

Prices they can compare

Students live on budgets and compare prices before they walk anywhere. A page that says call for prices loses to one that lists them.

Prices for the five or ten things students buy most are enough. Date the list, and change it when the prices change.

Hours for the first weeks of term

The rush is predictable: the last week of August, when residences fill, and the first two weeks after Labour Day.

If you open longer in those weeks, put the hours on the listing for those weeks only and change them back afterwards. Hours that are wrong in either direction cost a trip and, often, a customer.

Reviews from last year's students

New students lean on reviews more than most people, because they have nothing else to go on.

Answer the reviews you have, briefly and politely, including the poor ones. A considered reply to a complaint reads well to someone deciding where to go.

Ask happy regulars for a review if you like, but do not offer a discount in return, since Google's rules forbid offering money or products for reviews.

The counter-case

Not every business near a campus serves students. A dental lab or a law office a block from the college gains little from a student page.

And a student discount is a business decision, not a requirement. A shop whose margins cannot carry one can still win students with clear prices and the right hours.

For any business students do need, though, the listing and one useful page should be right before the last week of August.

Before term starts

1. Confirm access to Google My Business.
2. Match the categories to the words students use.
3. Correct the hours for every day.
4. Check Apple's Maps app and Bing Places.
5. Write a page for students, with prices.
6. Give the walk from a campus landmark.
7. Set the first weeks' hours on the listing.

Step two matters most this month. With three businesses shown instead of seven, a listing filed under the wrong category is easier than ever to pass over.

The same rush of newcomers with phones and no local knowledge arrives in port towns, as covered in cruise ship days in a port town.

Frequently asked questions

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