Dealing with public tragedies, public holidays.

Unfortunately, one of the economic effects of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington will be that direct mail response for the month, traditionally one of the best of the year, will be dismal.

As far back as the assassination of JFK, direct mailers learned that when the public's attention is totally riveted to a dramatic public event for a period of some days, direct mail response goes down the tube. Adding to the immediate effects of this month's tragedy was the fact that the airline shutdown stopped and delayed mail delivery all across the U.S.

And, as one of my mentors told me once, direct mail is a metaphysical business in the sense that "orders you don't get today are gone forever. They aren't 'replaced' by orders you may get on a later date."

It's unfortunate, but there doesn't appear to much marketers can do about it. You cannot know when something tragic is going to happen. I wrote at the time of the Princess of Wales' death that direct marketers should post a picture of her in their cubicles as a reminder, should a dramatic incident happen, to immediately call the mailhouse and should "STOP" if there is time.

(Apparently there wasn't time for Rush Limbaugh's people: two weeks after September 11, NL/ NL received a particularly inappropriate DM piece touting his newsletter and railing against liberals and Democrats at a time when the rest of the country was forming a united front.)

Tim McVeigh planned his attack in Oklahoma City for April 19 to "memorialize" the fire at Waco on the same date, which appears to have "meaning" to a segment of U.S. loonies. Would you be paranoid if you decided not to be in the mail September 11 next year?

The Direct Marketing Association has issued a news release, "Recommendations to Cope with Attack Aftermath," but the best you can call it is a "good faith effort." It includes such suggestions as:

* Direct mailers must adjust their mailing schedules

* Telemarketers must implement a time-sensitive, geographic-based strategy before resuming outbound calls.

Duh.

NL/NL spoke with several newsletter publishers about their plans in the wake of the disasters. Apart from feeling a bit ghoulish, we learned that none were making any special plans. They are gritting their teeth, accepting disasterous September results (including ignoring any test results from those mailings), and going ahead with marketing plans for the rest of the year.

None mentioned an immediate remail of the Labor Day drops. One consumer publisher did say she was still undecided about a planned October mailing, wondering if even a month was long enough for response to return to "normal levels."

Special Note of Sympathy. To Eagle Publishing, an affiliate of Phillips, which was not only in the mail with an elaborate #14 envelope when it happened, but the premium for a subscription to Human Events-featured on the carrier envelope, in the letter, and in a stand-alone buckslip-is the latest book by conservative commentator Barbara Olson, The Final Days (of the Clinton Administration). She was killed on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

On the positive side, here's a tip for next year if you plan a "Labor Day" mailing. September is traditionally an excellent month for newsletter marketers. It's a kind of "second New Year": vacation is over, kids are back in school, adults are back at their desks in the office.

But have you checked school schedules lately? Beginning in the South, but sweeping all over the country, more and more school systems are beginning classes well before Labor Day. I have a friend who teaches elementary school in Charlotte; her first day back at work this year was scheduled for July 31.

It appears that mail dropped to arrive anytime from; say, August 20 on would get a two-week window-of-opportunity advantage over mailers waiting until after Labor Day to drop.

Traditionally, the best days of the year to drop newsletter marketing campaigns are: the day after Christmas, Easter Monday, the day after Labor Day, and (three years out of four) Election Day--the theory being that in Presidential election years the public's attention is exhausted by the political campaign.