Member Article

Marketing ‘Phone a friend’ platform marks early success as small business owners see value in truly objective advice

A forward-thinking platform designed to provide business owners and marketers with objective feedback on their marketing has celebrated early success, after growing numbers of SMEs benefit from its unique approach to external feedback.

SenseCheck was co-founded by Roger Jackson, ex Unilever and founder of his own market research firm, and Simon Preece, ex Global Brand Strategist of leading branding and design agency Elmwood, after recognising that not only are the majority of small businesses at a disadvantage with marketing due to budget restraints, but that their judgement is clouded by working on their own or with limited resource, all immersed in their product or service offering 24/7.

Developed to overcome these challenges, SenseCheck offers a unique online platform where users can access an experienced panel of vetted marketing professionals for honest and objective feedback on any aspect of their marketing activity - from their website and branding through to new campaign ideas. After submitting a feedback request, users receive a constructive and valuable report, which includes commentary from 5 relevant experts.

Fast becoming the ‘phone a friend’ of marketing, SenseCheck now boasts over 220 panellists and welcomes over 700 weekly visitors to the platform. As such, Roger and Simon now have firm plans in place for SenseCheck to revolutionise how SMEs receive marketing advice and support, before expanding overseas in 2025.

Roger confirmed: “Simon and I developed the concept for SenseCheck after we both left larger, corporate environments and realised first-hand the sheer challenge SMEs face in competing with bigger market players with a fraction of their budget and agency support networks.

Unlike other marketing tools which can tell businesses which campaigns aren’t performing but cannot tell them why, SenseCheck allows firms to get qualitative feedback on their marketing from 5 time served marketing experts, so they can find out how their marketing is really coming across and why to an external eye, together with savvy advice on what to change.

The SenseCheck user base continues to grow month on month as more business owners and marketers (often working alone) see the value in this new and innovative method of marketing support, which is fantastic to see! As a result, we are now focused on educating all business leaders on the importance of objective feedback, while more than doubling growth within the next 12 months alone.“

An online business, SenseCheck is quickly establishing itself as a valuable support resource for marketing, being one of the most crucial success factors in small business.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by John Stone .