Strategies to Improve Rewards

Strategies to Improve Rewards

• Rewards are crucial for refueling user motivation after they take an action, especially for significant decision hills.
• Three types of rewards:
  • Extrinsic
  • Intrinsic
  • Social rewards

Five Ways to Increase Rewards

• Strengthen the Reward: Increase the amount or value of the reward.
  • Example: Increase referral bonus or content bundle size.
• Add New/Different Rewards: Introduce different rewards for the same action.
  • Example: Yelp using status, competition, and recognition for reviews.
• Decrease Time to Reward: Reduce the delay between action and reward.
  • Example: LinkedIn showing connections earlier to new sign-ups.
• Add Variability: Variable rewards create more dopamine, strengthening the reward.
• Multiply the Reward: Reinforce the same reward in multiple places.
  • Example: Medium displaying views in emails, dashboards, and notifications.

Key Questions for Optimizing Rewards

• What reward is the user currently receiving?
• How can we accelerate the time to reward?
• How can we add reminders of the reward in more places?
• Could I layer on additional rewards from that same action over time?