We are looking for a rewards strategy for our health mobile app, but must reward our users with something that will enhance health not worsen it!

I think my question would be have you looked back into the strategy of physical rewards for health motivation? Rather than recommend services offering gym discounts, health supplement discounts etc. I'd rather go back into the reasons why you want to offer rewards in the first place.

From most industry best practice and studies into motivation, if you make the process transactional (do good thing, get spa discount), you'll actually lower motivation in the long run and damage any possibility of turning the healthy activity into a habit.

Example 1: Studies where patients were paid money for adherence have repeatedly shown poor results, as patients begin to cheat the system and created something transactional.

Example 2: CrossFit started from day 1 with an idea of standardised measurement (i.e. quantified self) and competitive leaderboards (i.e. feedback loops). Even though there are no mechanisms to stop an athlete from lying about their own time, the organisation has created an entire culture and international business off of the idea of people competing with themselves and baselining against strangers around the world. Standardisation, feedback loops, and gradual difficulty progression are all key ingredients to how CrossFit achieve this.

Instead, I'd focus on how your rewards program can be intrinsically rewarding.

I wont say "gamification" for the sake of dropping a b-word but if you pick up a book called 'Drive' you'll get a good primer into the underlying psychology of how/why game/reward systems can improve a positive behaviour.

I've passively been around the health tech industry for the last few years so happy to follow up on a call, I also have a few contacts who might be helpful.

Try using Perka.

- They have a Developer API
- Program Administration capabilities
- POS Interface
- Customer Interface

After reading your question, my gut reaction would be to ask your users. Maybe you've already polled/interviewed them, but if not, I think it'd be a perfect excuse to get to know your users better.

I've spent a good amount of time talking with my users and found that there were quite a few assumptions that I was making that were far from true. If there's one thing I've learned managing product it's that sometimes you can't see the forest through the trees.

In my opinion, it'd be interesting to have a conversation with people who were motivated enough to use your product, and ask them what would be the top three motivating factors in getting healthy.

There is no better strategy when steering product design than to have a conversation with your users. My advice would be NOT to rely totally on yourself for the design of your product, but find a balance that works for your business of both internal design and external guidance (interviewing your users). Hope that helps!

Have you looked at local gyms or sports centers/sports merchandisers?

Hi,

It's great that you're focusing on enhancing health with your rewards strategy! Integrating with a rewards program that aligns with your app's health goals is key to promoting positive behavior. You might want to explore companies that specialize in offering rewards for fitness, wellness, or healthy food options, such as:

HealthyWage - Offers rewards for achieving fitness goals like weight loss, which can be a great fit for health-focused apps.
Sweatcoin - Rewards users with digital currency for walking, which can be exchanged for health-related products and services.
Perkville - Allows you to create a custom reward system that could include healthy living rewards, such as discounts for wellness services, fitness equipment, or healthy meals.
You can also look into companies that support rewards for fitness activities or wellness products, which might be a better fit than traditional junk food rewards. Additionally, consider integrating wellness-focused rewards like meditation app subscriptions, gym memberships, or healthy food delivery discounts.

You can read more about healthcare app development and how to integrate effective features by visiting this link: https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/healthcare-app-development/

Good luck with your rewards strategy!