Best of college and university campuses

Businesses that operate near or around college and university campuses know the joys and pain of relying on student customers. They are fickle, they are transient, and they are social. These characteristics make students hard to reach with a consistent message and the concept of a loyal customer is fleeting.

For decades, one vehicle local business owners have used to reach students has been their student run newspapers. However, on campus, these printed editions are competing with portals, student websites, and social networks like Facebook and Myspace -- where students spend most of their time and share most of the news they need to figure out what to buy and where to go around town.

To help reach these students online, we've begun to build guides to college and university campuses in major cities. Our first guide launched with a "best-of" contest this month with Boston College. We allowed the college newspaper staff to determine a radius around campus that defined the area where students generally shop and go out. For the past few weeks, we've been collecting student votes and reviews. So far, we have well over 1000 votes -- not bad for a new concept -- and the student paper is getting some great content to publish before the end of the year.

The businesses on the guide and competing in the contest have all kinds of Boston area customers, but some of them truly covet Boston's large student population. This is a great way from business owners to see exactly how they fair with the college audience and then respond with the right kind of marketing message.