Online survey incentives - Prize drawings
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Posted by: Todd Hollander in Respondent Incentives
For online survey incentives, a common alternative to a guaranteed reward is a prize drawing or sweepstakes. Here are the pros and cons for this type of incentive.
Pros
This type of incentive offers several advantages over one-to-one incentives, including:
- Lower overall cost
- Ease of administration
- Little or no shipping expense
- Ability to increase the incentive effect by increasing the odds of winning
Another advantage of the drawing is that it limits the financial exposure of the research organization by setting a fixed cost for the incentive. Even if the number of respondents greatly exceeds expectations, the payout can remain the same.
Cons
If only one or two respondents are to be selected in the prize drawing, it is critically important to select a prize that appeals to potential respondents. For example, a drawing for a $10 gift card probably isn’t much of an incentive compared to a drawing for a $100 prepaid gas card.
Similarly, it is very important to establish an attractive odds of winning the drawing. In my experience, odds that tend to resonate with survey respondents fall in the 1-in-100 to 1-in-250 range.
Many experts caution against using this type of incentive for certain types of research, particularly projects in which respondents can be self-referred. For example, if a Web site has a banner inviting all visitors to take part in a survey and offering them a chance to win a prize for participating, it runs the risk of attracting “professional respondents” (people who complete the survey just to win the reward). The responses of such respondents are often dishonest.
The bottom line: Although there is no definitive research proving that prize drawings are always more effective than one-to-one incentives, it is logical to conclude that more times than not the chance to win a significant prize motivates more people than a guarantee to receive a cheap trinket or bauble.
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