All the Reasons to Get Virtual Prepaid Cards as Research Incentives

For most people who conduct any kind of research, incentives are nothing new. What you might not know is just how vital rewards—and the way they’re executed—are to your recruitment and response rates.

Based on our recent research with Qualtrics, one piece of advice becomes clear: Get virtual prepaid cards, like Mastercard and Visa, as incentives. They’re a popular payment method among consumers, making it easier to get people to participate, plus digital rewards also allow you more convenience and time savings than traditional cash or check payments.

READ MORE: 5 Features to Look for When Rewarding With Virtual Prepaid Gift Cards

Flexible Is Their Favorite

In our study with Qualtrics, which surveyed 2,000 U.S. research participants, 54% say they prefer to receive incentives as prepaid and gift cards, even more than cash. That demonstrates participants’ desire for incentives that offer convenience and flexibility—but they actually want even more flexibility than they’re getting. When asked to get more specific, 43% say they want prepaid cards over retailer-specific gift cards. But only 34% report actually receiving prepaid cards—a gap of 9 percentage points.

The Faster, the Better—and Cheaper

Not only do participants value speed, they’re even willing to accept a smaller incentive amount for the same survey or study if they get it more quickly. According to our research:

Since reward recipients get virtual prepaid cards immediately via email or SMS, you’ll give them the instant gratification they’re looking for and can save some budget at the same time.

Follow the Digital Wave

With the importance of delivery speed, it’s a smart move to opt for digital incentives. Surveys and now qualitative research methods have moved largely online, so why not your rewards? Paper checks or even physical prepaid cards take at least a few days to arrive by mail. Not only can you get virtual prepaid cards delivered instantly, they can also be loaded into mobile wallets within a few minutes for more convenient redemption.

Get Virtual Prepaid Cards to Help You, Too

Sending virtual prepaid cards as research incentives is not only a benefit for your recipients, it also has a number of advantages for you and your team:

• It eliminates manual processes that take up your researchers’ time. According to Formstack, more than half (51%) of employees spend at least two hours a day on repetitive, inefficient tasks—and manually processing incentives definitely counts. When distributed through a robust platform like BHN Rewards, digital incentives offer automation options that can streamline distribution and ensure that your team has more time to spend on the research.
• You can tailor the value to your project. Whether you’re an in-house corporate researcher or work for a market research firm, you likely have a variety of projects that require both quantitative and qualitative methods. And our survey shows that the incentive value is a deciding factor for 72% of qualitative participants and 63% of quantitative participants. When you get virtual prepaid cards, you have the option to send incentives of any amount, so you can properly compensate participants for both simple, multiple-choice, online surveys and in-depth, in-person focus groups.
• You can stop juggling spreadsheets to track rewards. Virtual prepaid cards make it much easier to track your incentives and your budget in one place. You can even pull simple reports from a platform like BHN Rewards to show whether each incentive was delivered and claimed.

Ready to get virtual prepaid cards to maximize your research participation and streamline your processes? Request a BHN Rewards demo today!

about the author

Hannah Prince

Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.

Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.