How UK Garden Centres Prove the Value of Online Reputation Management
The UK’s 200+ garden centres are the perfect example of how your customers’ shopping experience has already started when they set foot in the door.
Creating an engaging shopping experience for any shopper who comes through the door is essential to securing business. However, even businesses that focus heavily on in-person sales need to be aware of their online presence. 97% of people looking for a local business start with an online search, so digital brand management is essential to keep people visiting.
Whether it’s social media marketing, community building through organic social media or securing 5-star reviews from your customers, there are many ways you can dress your virtual shop window to build trust and encourage more customers to visit your business.
Why online reputation management is so important.
Trust is one of the most important things you can build as a business, especially one that serves a local community. Word of mouth testimonials are important, but surveys show that 50% of people trust online reviews as much as word of mouth, meaning a stellar online reputation is a great way to build brand trust.
In addition to reviews, business social media posts are now discoverable in search, making social another way you can build on your local SEO profile and demonstrate your brand trust online before people visit your store. Combining consistent positive reviews with engaging and entertaining social posts will help to improve brand awareness, trust and loyalty with your target customers.
TripAdvisor reviews...
- 45% of customers report they are more inclined to visit a business that responds to the negative reviews
- The most common filter applied is to see only companies with 4-star ratings and higher
- 93% of users say online reviews had an impact on their buying decisions
- More than 7 in 10 consumers claim to “always” or “regularly” read online reviews when looking for local businesses
How your online reputation influences your search presence.
While third-party reviews and social media accounts don’t have a direct impact on your SEO, these platforms give you more opportunities to promote your brand when people are searching for your service. Business Instagram and TikTok posts now feature in Google search results, meaning wherever you post, people can find your content.
One of Google’s assessment metrics for websites focuses on E-E-A-T signals (Expertise, Experience, Authority, Trust). By receiving genuine, good quality reviews and featuring them on your Google profile or website, you can communicate to your customers and Google that your business is trustworthy, contributing to improved organic rankings.
Why garden centres?
Garden centres in the UK are key local retailers, forming an essential part of their local communities. Many businesses have created destination retail experiences that encourage people to visit regularly and enjoy a diverse range of services. With many featuring farm shops, cafes, toys and clothing lines, garden centres have so much to offer shoppers.
TripAdvisor's best garden centres for breakfast.
Pretty much every garden centre in the UK has an adjoining cafe or restaurant serving up classics like a traditional fry-up. These spaces began as a strategy to boost sales and encourage longer shopping times for customers but have now become a staple part of the experience, with some overtaking the reputation of the garden centre itself.
Developing your brand around key services gives you specific hooks for your marketing activity and your reviews are an ideal place to identify what is really resonating with your audience. If your breakfast is generating positive attention on TripAdvisor, running marketing or PR campaigns about new menu launches or deals can help draw back existing customers and attract new ones.
Conversely, an aspect of your business that draws bad reviews gives you an opportunity to improve as a company and generate marketing activity to remedy the perception. If your breakfast is attracting negative attention, tackle the issues raised by your customers and promote your improved service. This way, your existing customers will feel listened to while new ones will see that you’re consistently improving your offering.
The top 10 UK garden centres for breakfast.
Rank | Region | Garden Centre | TripAdvisor Score | TripAdvisor 5&4* Reviews | TripAdvisor Breakfast mentions | Breakfast % of Review |
| Inverness | 4.1 | 158 | 44 | 27.85% | |
| Lincolnshire | 4.2 | 220 | 42 | 19.09% | |
| Cambridgeshire | 4.1 | 50 | 9 | 18.00% | |
4 | Essex | 4.5 | 502 | 85 | 16.93% | |
5 | Powys | 4.2 | 401 | 67 | 16.71% | |
6 | Wrexham | 4 | 73 | 12 | 16.44% | |
7 | Buckinghamshire | 4.2 | 87 | 14 | 16.09% | |
8 | Leicestershire | 4 | 78 | 12 | 15.38% | |
9 | Newcastle | 4.1 | 91 | 14 | 15.38% | |
10 | Derbyshire | 4 | 888 | 122 | 13.74% |
Garden centres with the biggest impact on Instagram.
In the home and garden industry, Instagram is one of the strongest marketing tools there is. Ecommerce brands can be built on Instagram advertising but in-person or hybrid businesses, like many garden centres, organic social is an equally powerful tool.
Building a community through your own account is one way to develop an engaged audience and create an online space where new customers can discover your brand. However, there are other features on Instagram, like location tags, which can contribute to your brand image. User-generated content that tags your brand or your location as an effective endorsement of your brand that anyone can discover.
Growing an online community and maintaining a regular, engaging post schedule on social media can be challenging. It’s also difficult to communicate the direct results of that work, so many businesses don’t stick to it. While it’s not always easy to attribute this work to a business result, building a brand is what makes a business last, so this aspect of your digital presence shouldn’t be underestimated.
Top 10 garden centres on Instagram.
Rank | Region | Garden Centre | Instagram Hashtags | Instagram Posts (location tag) |
🥇 | Lincolnshire | 10.0 | 9.8 | |
🥈 | Glamorgan | 10.0 | 9.5 | |
🥉 | Lancashire | 8.7 | 10.0 | |
4 | Surrey | 8.7 | 9.9 | |
5 | West Yorkshire | 8.7 | 9.9 | |
6 | Leicestershire | 8.7 | 9.5 | |
6 | Essex | 8.7 | 9.5 | |
6 | Worcestershire | 8.7 | 9.5 | |
10 | Lincolnshire | 8.7 | 7.1 | |
10 | Northamptonshire | 8.7 | 7.1 |
Developing your brand around key services gives you specific hooks for your marketing activity and your reviews are an ideal place to identify what is really resonating with your audience. If your breakfast is generating positive attention on TripAdvisor, running marketing or PR campaigns about new menu launches or deals can help draw back existing customers and attract new ones.
Conversely, an aspect of your business that draws bad reviews gives you an opportunity to improve as a company and generate marketing activity to remedy the perception. If your breakfast is attracting negative attention, tackle the issues raised by your customers and promote your improved service. This way, your existing customers will feel listened to while new ones will see that you’re consistently improving your offering.
Garden centres dominating TikTok.
A newer concept for many garden centres and one that is especially important for those trying to grow their brand with a younger audience, TikTok is becoming an integral part of the marketing mix.
Similar to Instagram with its combination of branded and user-generated content, TikTok has the benefit of being a more egalitarian platform, which means even accounts with a small following can have their content broadcast to the right people.
Maintaining a post schedule and creating the content can be a challenge but with all of these platforms now appearing in Google searches, they allow you to dominate the narrative on your brand and consistently sell yourself to potential customers.
Top 10 garden centres on TikTok.
Rank | Region | Garden Centre | Videos per #TikTok | Average TikTok Views (business account) | Engagement Rate | Followers |
🥇 | Kent | 10.0 | 9.5 | 9.2 | 9.5 | |
🥈 | Glamorgan | 9.8 | 9.3 | 8.7 | 9.9 | |
🥉 | Lancashire | 9.7 | 9.4 | 8.6 | 9.8 | |
4 | Essex | 9.4 | 9.6 | 8.9 | 9.5 | |
5 | Northamptonshire | 9.5 | 9.3 | 9.5 | 9.0 | |
6 | Norfolk | 8.0 | 9.7 | 10.0 | 9.2 | |
7 | Oxfordshire | 9.1 | 9.2 | 9.1 | 9.4 | |
7 | Staffordshire | 9.2 | 9.4 | 9.4 | 8.8 | |
7 | Northamptonshire | 8.7 | 8.9 | 9.9 | 9.3 | |
10 | Warwickshire | 7.3 | 10.0 | 10.0 | 9.2 |
Developing your brand around key services gives you specific hooks for your marketing activity and your reviews are an ideal place to identify what is really resonating with your audience. If your breakfast is generating positive attention on TripAdvisor, running marketing or PR campaigns about new menu launches or deals can help draw back existing customers and attract new ones.
Conversely, an aspect of your business that draws bad reviews gives you an opportunity to improve as a company and generate marketing activity to remedy the perception. If your breakfast is attracting negative attention, tackle the issues raised by your customers and promote your improved service. This way, your existing customers will feel listened to while new ones will see that you’re consistently improving your offering.
Using User-Generated Content.
Reviews are classed as user-generated content and are such strong trust factors because they’re one of the most common ways to communicate things about your brand that come directly from impartial sources.
However, user-generated content can include social media posts by individuals. Tagging their location and using your brand name with relevant keywords will help you to be visible in social search as well as organic.
Creating a social-media worthy environment gives existing customers more of a reason to shout about your brand and spread the word for you. Sharing this content on your own socials and recognising your customers’ contributions is another way to communicate brand trust and also build brand loyalty with existing customers.
How to grow your brand and curate your online reputation.
Visibility is key
Anywhere your customers search, they should be able to find you and understand what kind of experience they’re going to have when they visit. Whether it’s through optimised content, ads, UGC or positive reviews, consistent visibility across multiple platforms ensures that your business stays top-of-mind for potential customers.
Build your community
A loyal community is one of the strongest assets a brand can have. By creating spaces, digitally and physically, where people can share experiences, you build trust and credibility. UGC turns customers into brand advocates, while newcomers feel welcomed into a supportive environment. A thriving community turns customers into collaborators, making them feel like they’re part of your brand’s journey.
Play to your strengths
Focusing on the areas where you excel allows you to be strategic and build your brand in a direction that you know your customers already love. For local businesses, loyalty is everything and being really good at certain things will keep people coming back. When you consistently deliver on your strengths, you build a reputation for reliability and authenticity.
Acknowledge your shortcomings
Acknowledging your areas for improvement and putting effort into changing builds trust and also encourages people to return even if their experience wasn’t ideal. Don't pour all your energy into things that people aren’t resonating with, but taking steps to make their experience the best it can be supports the other aspects of your business that you do really well.
Methodology.
TripAdvisor
The study analysed TripAdvisor reviews for 200 garden centres and their on-site cafes and restaurants. Add People identified the number of 4 and 5* reviews, as well as the number of top reviews that specifically mentioned keywords like ‘breakfast’ to find the percentage. Only centres with at least 50 ⅘* reviews were included in the final analysis.
Add People collected data on the number of posts using related hashtags or location-specific tags for each garden centre in the dataset.
TikTok
Add People used available data for the number of videos per hashtag and the total following of each business account. For engagement rates and average views, we used the social listening extension UpDog.