When and How to Use Points-Based Participant Incentives for Research

Participant incentives have become an integral part of the research process. Incentives boost survey response rates and engagement and make recruitment easier for qualitative studies. In fact, our research with Qualtrics found that 92% of survey respondents participate for the incentive.

But with long-term research or survey panels, giving individual rewards for each action may not be practical or cost-effective. In those situations, a points system can be a great alternative. Points-to-rewards are already a popular model for customer loyalty programs at retailers, airlines, grocery stores, and more, and they are just as useful for researchers.

READ MORE: Download the full BHN/Qualtrics report on maximizing participation and incentives

Benefits of Points as Participant Incentives

Panels and long-term studies rely on the ongoing involvement of your participants. Whether you’re asking them to complete frequent surveys or provide regular feedback on a product, participants are more likely to stay engaged with points-based incentives because they want to rack up enough points to redeem their reward.

In addition, points-to-rewards are ideal for studies that require screener surveys, which narrow down the field of respondents based on certain demographics, characteristics, experiences, or preferences. When a panel participant is consistently disqualified, they can get screener fatigue and drop out, meaning you have to recruit more members.

By using a points system, it’s easy to give small participant incentives even for screeners. As long as respondents are making progress toward their reward, they’re more likely to stick with it. Just five or 10 points for each submission can do the job.

Easily Manage a Points System With BHN Rewards

While the advantages of points-to-rewards may be compelling, you may be concerned about the administrative lift of maintaining such a program. To make it easy, BHN Rewards offers the PointsJoy solution, which automates much of the process and simplifies setup, redemption, and reporting.

Here are some of the great features and capabilities of PointsJoy:

• Reward choice. When it’s time to redeem their points, recipients can choose the participant incentives they want from a wide range of digital gift cards, prepaid cards like Mastercard and Visa, and even charitable donations. That flexibility means you can be sure to offer something for everyone — after all, incentives are only effective if they’re desirable.
• Two ways to set up incentives delivery. You can let participants decide when to redeem their points, or you can automatically send a reward when they reach a certain threshold. The latter protects your budget by preventing someone from racking up a very large number of points and trying to redeem them all at once.
• Integration with 20+ survey and research tools. You can connect PointsJoy with popular survey platforms such as Qualtrics to automate the awarding of points. When a participant completes a survey, the appropriate number of points are credited to their balance immediately.
• An embedded reward selection process. If you already have a panel or insights community portal that you use to assign points, you can opt for our Reward Gallery. This allows you to embed the incentive “shopping” experience directly, so recipients can choose and claim their participant incentives within your existing platform.
• Advanced reporting. BHN Rewards offers easy-to-use dashboards and reports to help you track trends, budgets, and reward claim rates.

Want to learn more about PointsJoy and how it can help you manage your points-based participant incentives? Request a 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.