Most websites exist for self interest reasons.

To sell more.

As a platform for “spreading the word”.

Gain advertiser dollars.

Now more than ever, if you want your audience to do something, you have to give not just encouragement, but an ethical bribe too!

What is an Ethical Bribe?

An ethical bribe is a win-win deal. You give something in order to get something in return.

So the classic example would be, as I do, and Invesp does, to offer a free ebook in return for subscribing. It’s ethical because you are offering real value for a harmless, or at best beneficial, action. You gain, they gain. The subscribe is incentivised, but to stay subscribed you need to keep offering value. It would be unethical if a spammer tricked someone into supplying their email address of course, this is why we say “ethical bribe”!

Another example is surveys. Most people know that to make a survey produce worthwhile data you need a statistically significant amount of submissions. To be safe we are talking 1,000 entries or more.

We get more people to submit their surveys by providing bait. A prize, a free gift, fame, and so on. People love to enter surveys where there is a prize because they know the chances of winning are so high. Great odds when you compare against other online competitions, and the prizes are usually good. Take for example this car survey a friend is running where you can win a Tom Tom GPS.

It’s not just for lists and surveys. You might want to incentivise your customers to provide feedback or testimonials. Just be careful you do not upset people or insult good customers who would help you any way.

This is the danger of bribes, they need to be appropriate and used sensitively. The best route is to talk to people and find out your best approach through consultation.

That said, the risks are low when done correctly, and used well an ethical bribe can increase your user actions by a huge percentage. Try it!