Beta testing can provide valuable insights for design, marketing team, sales and development to ensure that the product they are developing is prepared for release.
Businesses often offer incentive gift cards as rewards for participation among testers. These may come in either physical or digital formats – the latter often provides instantaneous gratification that can increase engagement and reinforce future behavior.
1. What Are Beta Programs?
Beta programs enable companies to gather feedback for a product prior to release. They may take place internally or publicly, with input coming from various users in various industries.
At the center of any successful customer feedback program is customer interaction – collaboration with sales and customer success teams such as sales or success is essential. Programs may run for defined periods or until desired satisfaction scores or adoption metrics have been attained.
Weekly calls can be an efficient way to gain feedback from beta customers, giving them time to prepare and ensure you can devote all your attention.
2. Why Companies Pay in Gift Cards
Consumers love purchasing gift cards as an expression of their gratitude, whether for an important milestone or as a treat simply for themselves. Gift cards also make excellent ways of rewarding top sales performers who achieve their quotas.
Physical gift cards feature your logo for constant brand promotion, while digital versions can easily be tracked via your POS system or an independent vendor. Plus, closed loop gift cards don’t incur processing fees like credit cards!
Open-loop cards, on the other hand, are prepaid credit cards that do incur fees but can help your business by offering long expiry dates or none at all.
3. Top Beta Programs Offering Cards
There are various beta programs that offer gift cards as compensation to testers. Examples include apps like Receipt Hog that allow testers to earn rewards by submitting receipts, as well as games like Mistplay (available only on Android devices).
Incentivization can help recruit and motivate beta testers. The amount of the incentive should reflect the effort involved with running the test.
Incentive can take many forms, from custom t-shirts, coffee mugs, and tote bags to larger incentives like access to product launch parties or meeting the development team. Such incentives aim at building an army of engaged beta testers that will spread word of your product throughout their networks of friends and followers.
4. Tech Product Testing
Beta testing tech products is an effective way to obtain real feedback that will help shape and refine the software or app before its release. Open betas can be found through several platforms, including Centercode, Killer Startups and AppleSeed which offers participants free products or gift cards as part of the AppleSeed program.
Preparing for a beta test involves creating a landing page that explains your product and will be tested, along with any rewards or incentives being offered to testers. Doing this will keep them engaged with the project while giving you a higher chance of retaining testers.
5. App & Game Testing
Test games and mobile applications for compensation by conducting beta tests. Earn XP and GTGold to unlock achievements and increase your tester rank – which affects how often new tests will be invited to.
Recruipting beta testers is key to reaching your target audience. Reach out to people who already use your product, as well as those in related industries and communities.
Give them gifts like free access for one year, or discounts on in-app purchases; this will show your beta testers that their contributions are appreciated and respected.
6. Retail Product Trials
Companies recruiting testers for retail products often recruit them through social media and community forums, offering hourly rates or stipends in return for their time – or incentives such as free access to beta products or gift cards as incentives.
Reaching out to influentials in your market and asking them to promote your beta program on social media will also help generate signups for it.
Apps such as Receipt Hog and Receipt Pal allow you to upload receipts and redeem them for gift cards. Mistplay (available on Android devices) also gives out gift cards; Valued Opinions and Opinion Outpost provide survey apps which offer this benefit.
7. Application Tips
Recruitment testers is best achieved through advertising your program via social media and community forums (such as /r/TestMyApp and /r/alphaandbeta). For targeted recruitment purposes, creating an application questionnaire using Typeform or Google Forms could also prove effective.
Once you have recruited testers, it is important to offer some kind of incentive in order to keep them engaged and provide meaningful feedback. Typically this might take the form of offering free access to the product/service once launched or gift cards as compensation.
Receipt Hog and Receipt Pal are apps that enable users to upload their everyday receipts and earn points redeemable for gift cards, while Mistplay allows players to play games while earning these reward cards.
8. Testing Requirements
To ensure that a beta test is a success, users need to provide feedback in the form of surveys or informal conversations.
To ensure the highest-quality feedback, it’s essential that beta testers be compensated for their time and efforts by offering gift cards, cash prizes, or product discount codes in return.
To find beta testers, post requests in forums that cater to your target audience – these could include social media sites like Facebook or Reddit as well as Slack communities. Quality blog posts also perform well on Google search and may attract potential testers; just make sure your request is clear and direct.
9. Payment Timelines
Engaging active testers throughout a testing cycle can be challenging. One way of keeping them engaged and providing more feedback is incorporating contests into your beta test. Contests offer users exciting reasons for staying involved while giving you additional user input.
An effective way of finding beta testers is partnering with influencers who can promote your product to their audiences. This approach can be especially useful if your product caters to a niche market that would otherwise be difficult to access. Of course, payment should always be given; gift cards or similar incentives may be an appropriate form of compensation for their time and efforts.