The 173% figure comes from an experiment carried out by Dustin Curtis, who played with the language that directed his website visitors to his Twitter account. He took his existing call to action: “I’m on Twitter” and played with the wording of the link, resulting in some extraordinary insights.

Dustin Curtis experiment

Through trial and error, he discovered that a move from “I’m on Twitter” to “You should follow me on Twitter here” resulted in the whopping increase in clicks. In his words:

As the forcefulness and personal identifiability of the phrase increased, the number of clicks likewise increased. “You” identifies the reader directly, “should” implies an obligation, and “follow me on twitter” is a direct command. Moving the link to a literal callout “here” provides a clear location for clicking. I tried other permutations that dulled the command, used the word “please” in place of “should” and made the whole sentence a link. None of them performed as well as the final sentence.

At the very least, the data show that users seem to have less control over their actions than they might think, and that web designers and developers have huge leeway for using language to nudge users through an experience.

Too often, we add words and images to something without a second thought about whether they are the right words and images. There’s only one way to find out, and that’s through testing. If the experiment above doesn’t convince you that it can be extremely worthwhile, then I don’t know what will.

Ask yourself: What are you trying to accomplish with your website or email campaign? Sign-ups? Click-throughs? Social media followers? Play with the variables around your particular call to action and see how a small change can score big results.

To get started, I’d highly recommend Smashing Magazine’s definitive guide to A/B Testing. It offers an excellent primer and practical advice, as well as top-notch tools, resources and examples, all in one spot. (It’s where I found this experiment.) Check out some of the other great case studies there too, like how 37 Signals increased sign-ups by 30% with a new headline or how Jason Thompson doubled the number of people contacting him by using his photo instead of a telephone icon.

Beautiful.

Found via I Believe in Advertising.

The answer, although so simple, challenges our ideas about rational decision-making. The difference lies in the wording of the forms at the DMV. That’s it. In Germany and Denmark, the form reads: Check here if you want to participate in the organ donor program. In Belgium and Sweden, it says: Check here if you do not want to participate in the organ donor program.

In both cases, very few people bother to check the box, but the results of that indifference cause the drastic difference we see in the statistics. Pretty amazing. This is from Dan Aierly’s TED Talk on Irrationality in Decision-Making. I just bought this book, and highly recommend checking him out.

- Found via Brand Arcade

The brand placement in the web spots is fairly subtle, and from what I can tell it’s not present in the actual public installations at all. Simply a sign indicating “fast lane” for the slide and skateboard carts. They wrap it all up nicely with language around people that like to “speed things up” and who are “driven by fun”.

Really neat.

via I Believe in Advertising.

Hands off my marketing budget! – How to fight for your economic development marketing program

Marketing can be tough to conceptualize, difficult to measure, and is usually the first on the chopping block when it’s time to reduce spending. This white paper will examine each of these challenges and provide concrete responses and strategies for addressing them.

Click here to download the free white paper.

Past white papers in this series for Economic Development Professionals can be found here.

“…the author looked at the financial advantages, and costs, that clusters provided for firms throughout the life cycle of two innovative industries — semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. He examined 31 years of data on 194 publicly traded companies, which enabled him to see how clustered and nonclustered firms performed at various points in an industry’s life cycle. Surprisingly, the author found no clear evidence that clusters enhance a firm’s financial performance.”

Sounds like more research is needed, and the study does not rule out the non-financial benefits that may be realized with clustering strategies, but it does have implications an idea that has been widely accepted as an economic development truth.

Read more here via Place Marketing Group.

“It’s a worldwide campaign to let the rest of the world know that Iceland isn’t completely covered in ash,” Icelandic tourist board director of marketing Jon Gunnar Borgthorsson said.

The country has created a new website: inspiredbyiceland.com and a really wonderful ad (shown below) asking Icelanders to spread the word via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in an effort to improve perceptions and salvage the tourism industry that the country has come to rely on so heavily since its major banks collapsed in 2008.

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

Appealing to people that know and love the country to act as ambassadors in the face of a tourism crisis is smart strategy on Iceland’s part. The ad is beautifully executed, the cinematography is breathtaking and the ad is brimming with personality – from the all the crazy dancers to the naked couple to the old guys in the pool.

I love that group dancing timing is always off, I love that the people are laughing at each other during the filming, I love that the guy almost falls off his bike – it genuinely portrays Iceland and its people in a wonderful and honest light. The music is catchy too – “My heart is beating like a jungle drum” by Iceland’s Emiliana Torrini.

It may have taken a giant ash cloud to do it, but this campaign out of Iceland is top-notch.

From The Sydney Morning Herald via AdPulp.