Gift cards are widely regarded as one of the best motivators to writing a review. Reviewers can physically exchange their time and share their expertise and get paid in return.

However, there may be many reasons why a gift card is not a good option. Depending on your budget and audience, there are other unique ways to say thank you to your customers after writing a review. 

Keep in mind, if you are really in need of new reviews, sometimes doing a gift card AND a unique incentive can increase your chances of getting reviews.

Our list is not exhaustive, so get creative, and perhaps even poll your customers to understand what motivates them!

6 Unique Incentive Options: 

1. A custom 1×1 call with an expert on staff or an invite to a private webinar or AMA (Ask Me Anything).
   If you provide a service that has a learning curve or you are seen as an expert in your industry, this can be motivating to reviewers to have that in-depth help with whatever they need.
2. Swag.
   You’d be surprised at how much people want swag! You can give away a fun T-shirt (or something on brand for your company), and not only is that motivation to write the review, but it also builds your brand as your customers wear it. This has been done in creative ways, where brands will offer one shirt design for a couple of months or a year, then switch the design. Then, wherever their community meets up (online and/or at events), you have a sea of people in different branded T-shirts.
   My biggest recommendation is to really lean in to what your customers would love with swag, don’t just pick something that is the cheapest or easiest option.
3. Stuffed Animals.
   This one really ties into swag but in a different way. If you host an event or go to an event where you want your customers to write a review, branded stuffed animals are coveted.
   Imagine this: You took off the work week to attend a conference in a new city. You’re away from your family and regular routine. You see the software you use has a booth driving reviews and they have stuffed animals. Your biggest motivator in the moment is the fact that your kid will absolutely LOVE a stuffed animal as a gift from your travels.
   From our personal experience at events, we’ve seen reviewers come back to customers with multiple products they use who want to leave a review for every one—just to get enough stuffed animals to bring home.
   While we’ve seen this and offered this at events, this could work online, depending on your audience.
4. Pick a gift through a gift service.
   At TrustRadius, we use a service internally where employees can choose from a wide-range of products that fit in a certain budget. This takes the question out of what to get a reviewer and also manages all of the shipping. Depending on the software you use and your organization’s values, sometimes you can even narrow down the options to include only sustainable products or only products from small businesses.
5. Discount on next bill or to your conference.
   While this doesn’t always go directly to the reviewer, this can be motivating for certain audiences, especially if your customers are small businesses. If you have a conference coming up, you can use this as not only a way to promote your conference but also to incentivize customers to leave a review.
6. Donate to a charity.
   We’ve done a lot of work and research in this area. While the motivation is much smaller and conversions will not be quite as high as an incentive straight to the reviewer, donations can work (and they are a tax write-off). You can tie this in to an international or national holiday to be more timely (we’ve done International Women’s Day and Giving Tuesday) or have it as a regular option that means more to your organization.
   One route we’ve seen work well with customers is mixing gift card with charity, sending a smaller gift card plus around $10 per review to a charity of your choice. People are rewarded individually and also feel like they are contributing to something meaningful.