Lyris

List Size:
100 to 1K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: NA

Qual: 5

Ease: 5

Country:

Strengths: Easy to use. Too bad the host is not user-friendly. LookNet sucks.

Weaknesses: The host not the user.

Missing? N/A

List Size:
25K to 100K

Empl:
100 to 500

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 4

Qual: 3

Ease: 3

Country:
US

Strengths: Sends emails very quickly good customer support once you have a live contact (their online manuals are terrible though) handles both HTML and text (but no auto-sniffing)

Weaknesses: User interface is confusing especially if managing more than one list. Online instructions are vague. Testing method is first generation and still a little crude.

Missing? Autosniffing availability of HTML email reader processes to more easily manage multiple lists

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
one

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 5

Ease: 2

Country:
Canada

Strengths: very reponsive & super fast. automates unsubscribes and continues to try sending email until 97%+ get through

Weaknesses: steeper learning curve

Missing?

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
one

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 4

Ease: 1

Country:
UK

Strengths: Ability to customise just about every element of the newsletter and the subscription process.

Weaknesses: Poor online help system. Help screens are not context sensitive nor are they customised for Sparklist. Instead they are generic Lyris help pages which often discuss features not available to Sparklist list admins.

Missing? 1) Web based interface to allow users to manage their subscription easily. 2) Ability to send reminder messages to people who have not confirmed their subscriptions. 3) Ability to collect user demographics 4) A preview before send feature for messages

List Size:
500K to 2 mil

Empl:
1K to 5K

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 3

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 4

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Has been reliable and available when I need it. Good online support -- documentation is easy to find and plentiful on their site.

Weaknesses: A number of features I would like to use need to be installed from scripts (we have the version that is hosted on our own servers) so you need a IS person to implement these. I feel these should be a standard part of the product install. These features include deleting and adding an e-mail address across lists. Also somewhat cumbersome to navigate especially when searching for an e-mail within a large list.

Missing? The ones mentioned above are available but are not integrated into the product out of the box. I would also like to search e-mail addresses in a list using a string of characters -- currently you need to know exactly what letter(s) the address starts with.

List Size:
25K to 100K

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 3

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Self-subscribing and -unsubscribing; Easy to use Web admin.

Weaknesses: Can't collect/store enough data about subscriber--only name and e-mail address.

Missing?

List Size:
100K to 500K

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 3

Ease: 3

Country:
US

Strengths: i can go to the Sparklist site and type my copy right into an online form and then send it out from there.

Weaknesses: Most frustrating is the administration area where there is a lot of gobbledygook jargon about various functions and even the warning that one area is for advanced users only.

Missing? Spell Check easier editing

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
one

Training:
5 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 3

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: List management but v. weak on reporting.

Weaknesses: xx

Missing? xx

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 4

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: * Simple to operate. * Their staff are VERY helpful. Unlike other help staffs they all know the product and can walk you through any problem. (I've had MUCH difficulty getting my problems resolved with the so-called help lines of other programs - I've gotten the impression that these people have been trained to answer the phones only and don't know a thing about the product that they are there to help you with) *Their newest feature is great - it allows you to edit the message by first e-mailing it to yourself. In the past I'd made mistakes when composing the message but had not noticed it until I(and thousands of others) had received the e-mail. *I could go on and on - the bottom line is that they save you all the headaches managing the list which you shouldn't waste time worrying about. You need concern yourself with only the most important issues: building your list and creating & mailing your newsletters/flyers.

Weaknesses: *There was one weakness that has now been corrected (you now get to edit the message by actually e-mailing it to yourself). I have not run into any others. *I am not very computer literate so I did have some problems when trying to send an html message. But there are ways around this - I know these thanks to their help staff.

Missing? I know of none.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: Deletion of bad addresses over time smooth/prompt mailing with no problems great customer service

Weaknesses: The list admin interface is not as user-friendly as it could be. It's takes some getting used to though know specific technical background/skills are required.

Missing?

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
1K to 5K

Training:
5 hr

Cust Serv: NA

Qual: 5

Ease: 3

Country:

Strengths: Very intuitive and easy to use. Flexibility and scalability are huge pluses.

Weaknesses: Lyris' graphics on all interfaces.

Missing?

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: NA

Qual: 5

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Very easy to configure and manipulate verious settings such as open or moderated list double opt-in/opt-out subscribe/unsubscribed automatic handling of bounced messages ability to send plain text & HTML at same time very complete and thorough activity logs.

Weaknesses: Can't really think of any right now.

Missing? Importing large numbers of email addresses from some existing database is not available.

List Size:
< 100

Empl:
one

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 5

Ease: 3

Country:
Canada

Strengths: The strongest feature for the Lyris software is it's ability to protect the list from virii by blocking attachments. The interface is a bit clunky and the ability for subscribers to read mail and interact on the web is lacking. I also use topica and yahoo groups but they lack the virus blocking capabilities. They are free the lists I have on them are less important so... I use Lyris through a company called Global Resources for Computing: http://www.grcomputing.net/ These people took over a service that formerly was offered by Missionary Aviation Fellowship. Their fees are reasonable in my opinion. My ministry is not large so I only run one list on their server an e-mail discussion list for independent Baptist pastors in Canada.

Weaknesses: Oops! I guess I got going in the last question and gave you more info than you asked for! The biggest weakness of Lyris as I mentoned earlier is the clunky web interface. It is a very stable and robust program otherwise.

Missing? If Lyris had the ability to create a forum appearance like a Topica list has I think it would be perfect.

List Size:
100K to 500K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 4

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: NA

Qual: 5

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Lyris is very easy to manage and manipulate.

Weaknesses: No frustrations.

Missing? It would be nice if it was less expensive to buy.

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Reliable fast quick support response test-email feature before the real issue goes out to the list easy to understand interface with lots of options for the list administrator no hassle set-up when we started with them. But I guess the biggest feature is I *know* I can count on them to deliver my newsletter when and how I want it delivered.

Weaknesses: After 15 months with them I still have no complaints.

Missing? They have several ways to organize the list addresses but one they don't offer is an alphabetical list with the join date after the name.

List Size:
25K to 100K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 3

Ease: 4

Country:
India

Strengths: No restriction on the size of the newsletter

Weaknesses: Getting the list of email Ids of subscribers is cumbersome. Comes through as a mail which gets huge in cases the list os subscribers is huge [50 000 plus]

Missing? Would help if one could find out the number of people opening the mail

List Size:
100 to 1K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease: 5

Country:
US

Strengths: Simple. Also sales and service has been helpful.

Weaknesses: None

Missing? None noted.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
5 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 4

Ease: 3

Country:
US

Strengths: It is very easy to use. Once the settings are established I can just cut and paste and send. They offer click-through-tracking which is important and the ability to send via HTML which has increased our traffic through the emails by 75%.

Weaknesses: When sending a multi-mime message the people receiving the text get the HTML code at the bottom of their email which is cumbersome.

Missing? N/A

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease: 3

Country:
US

Strengths: We like it because it is a hosted solution and they have very friendly very helpfull 24 hour tech support.

Weaknesses: It took a little time to figure out all the commands. Some of features are spread out in different areas and are only accessable from the main menu. So you have to bounce between the main menu to get to these different areas to get it to do what you want.

Missing? It would be good if there were common links in each area so you can go to other areas quicker.

List Size:
100K to 500K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 4

Qual: 4

Ease:

Country:

Strengths: scalability

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 2

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: Lyris has a good administrative back end for handling members. The problem is that it is designed for ASCII email messages and turns HTML emails into miles of code.

Weaknesses: Doesn't handle HTML text

Missing? A daily digest of messages in HTML format.

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 4

Ease: 5

Country:
US

Strengths: Very intuitive interface and just very easy to use. I also like the fact that I can set the list server to send blasts and certain dates and times. Therefore I can load everything into the list server days in advance and know that it will be sent on the date that I desire.

Weaknesses: Does not allow us to segment our database and do selects. (Sparklist)

Missing? Please see above.

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 3

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: gets the job done. nothign spectacular.

Weaknesses: human interface stinks! proprietary language is frustrating and difficult to learn i.e. what's the difference between a message a message a document or a mail? There's a helluva lot of difference if you don't know. Not an intuitive progam at all.

Missing? Better inteface.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 5

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Easy to use double opt-in easy to opt out no problems. Professional results.

Weaknesses: A little difficult to set up.

Missing?