I.O.L.: The Shifty Marketer’s Trick? (Part 1)

It was 1988.

Arthur Bach was worth over 750 million dollars – old family money, all inherited.

He lived in a palatial, Trump-style apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Required pampering around the clock by white-gloved servants. Refused to go anywhere without being chauffeured in his 1956 Rolls-Royce Touring Limo. And partook of all the finest things in life.

Then… literally overnight… he was broke. Cut off from his family’s fortune.

With no money, no skills, and no home.

So his wife, Linda – a common, working class woman from Queens, NY – did what any ordinary person would do in the pre-Internet days. She opened the newspaper and looked through the classified ads for a cheap apartment to rent.

She found one that sounded interesting and had a unique feature. So off the two of them went to see it.

“The ad mentioned there was an I.O.L. in every room”, Arthur said inquisitively to the old-man landlord, Mr. Butterworth. “What is I.O.L?”

“Ah, yes. Let me show you,” responded the old man as he walked over to the nearest light switch.

“I.O.L. That’s instant-on lighting. See… when you flick the light switch, the lights instantly go on. No delay. Instant-on lighting. And that’s in every room.”

I.O.L…now that’s funny. Ridiculous… but funny.  And right out of the 1988 film, Arthur 2: On the Rocks, starring Dudley Moore.

The scene is a perfect example of how the idea of a Unique Mechanism in marketing can be misused. Or, better said, abused. And it happens more often than you would believe. Especially online.

Yet when used properly, the Unique Mechanism can be an incredibly powerful marketing device.

The Unique Mechanism

So let’s talk about the three different ways of using it properly.

Let’s start with a definition of a Unique Mechanism:

It’s the unique piece, part, component, aspect, process, or system within your product or service that delivers the result and fulfills the marketing promise for the prospect.

For example:

• It’s the unique ingredient in your fat burning supplement that produces weight loss.
• It’s the unique algorithm in your SEO software that gets prospects top three rankings in 48 hours.
• It’s the unique recipe of secret ingredients that makes your pizza taste just like pizza from the old country.

See what I’m saying?

Give hope…

It – the Unique Mechanism – is typically employed by savvy marketers when communicating with prospects at level three of Marketplace Sophistication (as Eugene Schwartz would say).

Meaning: When your marketing promise has already been made to your prospects by competitors (level one). And when enlarging your marketing promise is no longer true, no longer believable, and no longer credible (level two).

That’s when we need a way of getting your prospects’ attention and giving them hope that this time around… with this purchase… things will be different for them. That this time… with your product or service… they will get the result they were promised.

That’s where the Unique Mechanism comes in.

There are three ways to generate or create a Unique Mechanism.

And in Part Two of this essay I will share those three ways, show you how and when to use each, and give you tips on using a Unique Mechanism to jack up your sales conversions.

So stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow…