I just learned two things: 1. There such a thing as a World Database of Happiness, and 2. Iceland apparently is the happiest place on earth (yes, Iceland, where it is cold and dark six months out of the year).

Why is Iceland a happy place? According to Eric Weiner, the author of The Geography of Bliss, Icelanders, culture doesn’t stigmatize failure. Icelanders are not afraid to fail — or to be imperfect — and so they are more willing to pursue what they enjoy.

That is one reason Iceland has more artists per capita than any other nation (OK, so here is where Björk comes in). “There’s no one on the island telling them they’re not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write,” Weiner writes.

This attitude makes Icelanders more productive. Instead of just sitting around thinking they would like to do something, they just do it. They are not perfectionists who only attempt to do things they know themselves to be good at.

In other words, paradoxically, it seems that perfectionism is a curse if one really and truly wants to do something perfectly.

Peter Bregman, in an HBR blog post, writes: “Perfectionists have a hard time starting things and an even harder time finishing them. At the beginning, it’s they who aren’t ready. At the end, it’s their product that’s not. So either they don’t start the screenplay or it sits in their drawer for ten years because they don’t want to show it to anyone.”

How Marketers aren’t like Icelanders

The way most marketers run their jobs, in my observation, is through “hope-driven leaps of faith” where they plan and execute a campaign and then pray that (a) The campaign works, and (b) Others think the campaign worked (not always the same thing). In all of this, little business value gets measured.

In other words, in this model there is no room to risk failure; no room to try something new and be imperfect — because the outcomes of failure are dismal.

This model makes marketers less productive and reinforces the perfectionist paradox of attempting only to do things they *know* will work. Of course, this approach is frustrating and limits marketers’ creativity to those initiatives they feel are highly likely to succeed — or at least be considered successful.

And here is where Landing Page Optimization comes in to make you happy.

Landing Page Testing for improved conversions is not about perfection. It is about seeing a problem (i.e., low conversion rates) and then trying many, many things out – until the problem is solved.

Yes, sometimes some test variations will fail. That is OK. By testing in a controlled environment, marketers will learn something (i.e., what did not work) and mitigate future risk by eliminating what didn’t work from the toolkit next time.

Having a test variation or two underperform against the Control does not mean failure. It means learning.

Of course, testing will also lead to successes, many successes. This is because at least some of the test variations will actually improve the conversion rate – and will do so measurably. And the measurement aspect will help the marketer shift the discussion away from opinions towards data – and in turn will deliver opportunities for further improvement.

So this is how Landing Page Optimization and testing makes marketers happier people: testing doesn’t stigmatize failure. Marketers become less afraid to fail — or to be imperfect — and so they are more willing to pursue what they enjoy and become more productive (always highly valuable but particularly in this economy).