What Are Subject Incentive Programs in Market Research?
Recruiting high-quality subjects for your research studies is time-consuming work.
Offering and distributing the right incentives to drive participation is half the battle. Saving time and effort on this process allows you to focus on the data and insights you collect.
Simple high-value offers are the key to research incentive programs. This article discusses incentive options, why you should use them, and the most effective options.
What’s the difference between market research and marketing research?
While they sound similar, market research and marketing research have distinct differences.
Market research is the broader concept focusing on the market landscape as a whole. It includes user demographics, customer behaviors, market trends, competitors, and similar. Specialized third-party companies, institutions, or individual researchers traditionally conduct market research.
Conversely, marketing research includes activities specific to a company’s marketing efforts. It’s usually conducted or overseen by an internal marketing department. It involves insights into product usage, pricing, and promotional strategies.
What are research subject incentive programs?
Research subject incentive programs compensate subjects in exchange for their time in the research activity. Rewards can be monetary or non-monetary. These initiatives encourage participation and high-quality responses during the research process.
What are the different types of subject incentive programs?
Marketers use a variety of different types of incentives for research subject incentive programs. Researchers may offer cash, gift cards, discounts, raffles, gear, and more.
Entries to win raffle prizes are also common but less effective than guaranteed compensation. Statista reports that recurring discounts, free samples, extended product warranties, and one-time coupons only appeal to up to 36 percent of the population.
While these types of incentives have some appeal, they don’t attract the majority of potential respondents.
Why should researchers use subject incentives for customer surveys?
Researchers increase the likelihood of customer survey participation by providing subject incentives. Incentives combat common challenges for researchers, including small sample sizes, low response rates, and ineffective data.
Subjects expect compensation for sharing their insights through research activities. Making incentives as clear and attractive as possible is critical to success. As the saying goes, time is money.
How much are the rewards in subject incentive programs?
The compensation for market research activities varies widely based on the supply of qualified respondents and the participant’s time and effort.
The National Business Research Institute (NBRI) suggests incentives ranging from $10 to $50 per respondent to improve market research response rates and data quality for smaller populations and achieve a representative sample.
NBRI differentiates strategies for larger populations of potential respondents (greater than 500). It recommends smaller incentives when capturing a representative sample is easier.
Increasing the value of rewards improves participation when there aren’t enough potential respondents, but it isn’t necessary for large samples with high participation.
What type of market research incentives are the most effective?
Several factors increase the effectiveness of market research incentives. Cash and its equivalents (checks, prepaid debit, and gift cards) are more popular than non-monetary rewards.
Even a small financial incentive improves success. NIH reports significant improvements in the outcomes measured—a common market research trend with compensation for subjects.
We know increasing the amount moves the needle, but the delivery method is also essential. Researchers commonly mail checks, and subjects may be wary of dealing with banking transactions.
Bulk gift cards are simpler and safer to distribute than cash. They offer transfer flexibility you don’t get with checks, making this approach attractive to the widest range of participants.
What types of market research are suited for bulk gift cards?
Bulk gift cards are an excellent option for market researchers seeking high participation from large sample sizes.
This reward is suitable for improving response rates for both qualitative and quantitative research, including online surveys, mail-back questionnaires, focus groups, and clinical trials. They’re ideal for projects with low response rates or data quality concerns.
Besides being particularly effective for market research projects involving large-volume groups, bulk gift cards are ideal for researchers who need cost-effective incentive distribution.
Furthermore, this approach accommodates participants from locations with different currency requirements.
What are the risks of using research incentives?
Marketers frequently debate the bias risk of research incentives. There are ethical arguments suggesting incentives skew research data.
For instance, participants may be dishonest about their eligibility or rush through the questions without giving honest and accurate responses just for compensation. The same risks exist for research without incentives.
On the other hand, the risks don’t outweigh the positive outcomes. Experienced researchers mitigate concerns of bias or oversampling with quality control measures.
Ultimately, the argument in favor of incentives comes down to three main points:
- Gift cards are commonplace and generally expected
- Gift cards are a fair and valid method to thank subjects for their time
- Gift cards are the fastest way to satisfy sample size and quality criteria
Conclusion: Bulk gift cards for subject incentive programs
Offering PayPal, Venmo, Mastercard Prepaid and Visa Prepaid are all good choices when respondents expect cash-like options. Certain verticals, like health care and doctor panels will require these incentives. Simple, high-value offers, such as cash and bulk gift cards, should enhance participation significantly and are key to successful research subject incentive programs.
Gift cards are particularly effective for large-volume groups and projects requiring high participation rates. The benefits of using incentives to attract and retain participants overwhelmingly support their use, improving both response rates and data quality.
While there are many incentive options when conducting online surveys, focus groups, and polls—bulk gift cards benefit the subjects and researchers the most.
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