Lyris ListManager 9.0 Sets New Standard in Email Marketing With Ajax Functionality

May 18, 2006; 03:05 AM

LyrisTechnologies, subsidiary of J.L. Halsey (OTCBB:JLHY) and a leading provider of email marketing solutions, unveiled Lyris ListManager 9.0 which sets a new standard in email marketing. In addition to its new features and advanced functions, Lyris 9.0 has been developed with the principles of Web 2.0 in mind, using a combination of AJAX and Flash, putting our product on the cutting edge of today's technology. ListManager 9.0's features include: the new ListManager Engagement Index which comprehensively evaluates how effective a campaign has been in captivating its target audience; the next generation Report Dashboard, which provides comprehensive campaign results; advanced A/B split testing capabilities with an easy to use, wizard-driven interface; reengineered mail queue, with sending speeds up to six times faster; and new one-click navigation.

"These new and enhanced features provide companies with more sophisticated ways to create, publish, and manage all aspects of an email marketing program and analyze results for best performance," states Luis Rivera, CEO of Lyris Technologies, Inc. "With this new release, Lyris continues to solidify its reputation as a leading-edge provider of hosted and software email marketing applications."

One new feature in ListManager 9.0 is the Engagement Index, which gives companies a means to comprehensively evaluate how effective their campaigns have been in retaining their audience. Most email marketers today only measure opens, clicks, and conversions. The Engagement Index provides more meaningful information to give companies a better measure of the success of new content or revised segmentation. The index also establishes industry benchmarks, which allow for a more accurate ROI and a more realistic way to compare results of mailings internally, as well as against competitors.

Version 9.0's Report Dashboard provides a snapshot overview of an email campaign's resulting metric trends. Additional information provided includes membership "health," which mailings generated the most purchases, and server and ISP performance.

Another enhanced feature is the sophisticated A/B split testing tool. Using this feature, marketers can improve their campaign capabilities by testing different versions of an email message before it runs. Rather than guessing which subject line, offer, or content works best, users first test several versions on randomly generated test segments and, based on those results, send the best version to the rest of the list.

Used in conjunction, these features combined with ListManager's other robust capabilities provide sophisticated tools to design and implement extremely effective email marketing campaigns.

Additional information regarding ListManager 9.0's new features is shown below.

ListManager 9.0 Embraces Web 2.0 Technology

ListManager 9.0 was developed based on the principles of Web 2.0, using a combination of AJAX and Flash, ensuring that our application is based on the most advanced technology available today. ListManager 9.0 is accessed via a web browser and has all the functionality of an installed application.

New Engagement Index

This tool comprehensively evaluates how effective a campaign has been in engaging its audience. The data provided becomes a benchmark, providing users a basis from which they can compare different campaigns. Users utilize this data when creating new campaigns, in order to optimize their messages for the highest possible customer response. Using data on opens, clickthroughs, unsubscribes, forwards, and resulting transactions, the Engagement Index uses a formula to weigh each action and generates a numerical value for how well the message engaged the receiver, based on those actions.

New Report Dashboard

The Report Dashboard provides summary information on campaign results, showing at a glance the most recent mailings and resulting metric trends, such as clicks, unsubscribes, and the engagement index value. The calendaring function allows users to view campaigns by date and date range, showing the frequency of published campaigns. Data on membership "health" -- opens, clicks, engagement, number of transactions, and dollar totals -- helps users to evaluate if their list is shrinking or growing and gives other data regarding recipients' actions.

The new features of ListManager's Report Dashboard include:

-- Charts that detail mailings per month, and open and clickthrough rates

-- Total number of transactions and total revenue generated

-- List of top performing mailings, by purchases

-- Server performance in terms of bandwidth and messages sent per minute

Advanced A/B Split-Testing

ListManager's wizard-driven split-tests lets users go beyond A/B splits to test up to ten different versions of their message. Users can test different subject line, content, or offer to determine the most effective version.

The new features of ListManager A/B Split-Testing include:

-- Randomly generated test segments

-- Concurrent sending of test email

-- Comparative reporting on a variety of metrics, such as subscribes, unsubscribes, opens, clickthroughs, and purchases

-- Easy to use, wizard-driven functionality for creating and running your tests

Additional ListManager 9.0 features include:

High-powered mail queue

We've increased the efficiency of bounce processing and click tracking, dramatically boosting our overall sending speeds. With 9.0, marketers can expect sending speeds up to six times faster. The process to detect duplicate addresses (for example, members who are on multiple lists) has also been reengineered, resulting in processing speeds from two to ten times faster.

New navigation functionality

New one-click navigation includes both top-level menus and subordinate pages, allowing marketers to move around the application faster than ever.

New look and feel

ListManager 9.0 has a brand new interface with an updated design.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 now fully supported

Lyris began supporting the MS SQL Server in its beta version -- with 9.0, this becomes a fully supported aspect of ListManager.

Availability

ListManager 9.0 is available now in the United States. For more information about pricing or a product upgrade, please contact [email protected] or visit www.lyris.com.

About Lyris Technologies

Founded in 1994, Lyris Technologies provides leading-edge email marketing software solutions to over 5,000 customers worldwide. Our suite of products, led by our flagship product ListManager, offers powerful tools for opt-in email marketing, list management, database segmentation, and deliverability assurance. Lyris offers both hosted and software versions for publishing email campaigns, newsletters, and discussion groups. Our commitment to permission-based marketing, outstanding deliverability rates, and our extremely positive ISP relations make Lyris' solutions among the best-selling email marketing applications on the market today. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Lyris Technologies, is a subsidiary of the J.L. Halsey Corporation (OTCBB:JLHY) along with Sparklist and EmailLabs. For more information, please visit http://www.lyris.com.