Is it possible to increase a respondent’s involvement in a survey with a competition? We think it is.
In a recent survey we asked participants to generate as many words as they could in 2 minutes from a list of 12 letters. The task was repeated three times, but on the third occasion participants were offered a prize of 500 Supermarket Loyalty Card points (worth £2.50 – yes, £2.50!) to the person who was able to generate the most words in the 2 minutes allowed.
On the fist occasion, an average of 14 words were generated. On the second occasion, the average dropped to 12 words (as boredom set in). But on the third occasion the average leapt to almost 16 words per person – a thirty percent increase – for just £2.50 of incentives.
We think this approach could be a real game changer for research, offering a cheap but effective way of improving respondent participation.
What do you think?