Incentive
An incentive is a reward or compensation that motivates a participant to take your survey or test, in exchange for their effort and time. Having a compelling incentive is important to help your study get to the top of the ‘to do’ list of your customer.
What incentives can I offer for my study?
While many organizations offer direct payment for participation in studies or surveys, if you have a tighter budget, you may consider a gift card or even a chance to win a gift card. When deciding your rate, consider factoring in what competitors are offering and how much you’re able to give.
UserTesting offers payments through PayPal for all contributors. Our unmoderated tests offer a set fee while Live Conversations provide more compensation due to the higher time investment and effort involved.
What are multi-step incentives?
In the past, companies like Google have created multi-step incentives. They’ve gamified their study process by building incentives at every stage of the feedback loop. For example, they offered $10 for taking a survey, $25 for completing a My Recruit study, and $100 to hop on a call with the Product team afterward.
If you’re conducting a series of tests, be sure to let your participants know this beforehand as well as the amount of time that’ll be required. As an additional incentive, you can offer to pay participants a bonus for completing multiple tests. Here at UserTesting, we’ve found that this can dramatically reduce the participant drop-off rate for this type of study.
What are non-monetary incentives?
Experiment with different incentives beyond monetary compensation. These are incentives that may be relatively inexpensive for you, but valuable to your customer. While non-monetary incentives may not always be enough to compel one to participate, several options include:
- Free products
- Discounts
- Charity donations
- Access to exclusive events
- Opportunity to influence top brands
- Getting an early look at what organizations are developing
- Making an impact