Lyris LM is unusual in that it is only available as an on-premise version. It is an enterprise platform and is used by some large brands.
Lyris was acquired by Aurea, and the product rebranded as Aurea List Manager.
N/A
Gist
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
Gist is a unified marketing, sales, and support platform. It includes live chat, a help desk, knowledge base, email marketing, marketing automation, opt-in forms, and more.
Lyris LM is suited well with an organization or group that have several lists, as virtual list hosting is not represented by any other hosting company as far as I can tell.
If your marketing model is selling products, services, or SAAS where you are doing inbound marketing and your website will do most of the lead generation and conversion, this is a great product. From live chat, support, event tracking, and automation, you could almost put your entire business on autopilot. If your marketing model is mostly outreach to cold leads and conversion, this software currently does not have any type of sales stages or task generation. I would still use Gist for website inbound but use another software for outreach and cold leads then when they become a lead put them into Gist for marketing automation.
Reports: extensive reporting on mailings and membership. Pre-built reports/charts include Mailings, Members, Server Performance, Web site, Purchases, Interest and Surveys. If Aurea ListManager doesn't have the built-in chart needed, you can easily create your own.
Easy to analyze mailings: Completed mailing can be analyzed quickly. Options include viewing any errors that may have resulted, and checking list performance, evaluating recipient actions, ( opens, click-troughs). Details can be seen on a per-recipient basis, allowing you to see exactly what happened with each message sent.
Discussion Lists. There are numerous list setting to customize each list.
Customer service via a unified inbox so you dont have to separately monitor your twitter, Facebook or IG account for consumer communication there. Gist unified all into one inbox, better than anyone else I've seen in the market. They archive all communications and tie them back to a single user so you get unified customer history / data.
Marketing segmentation and automation: they track user history and behavior across the site and have super detailed segmenting capability, on par with ActiveCampaign's, but better I'd say. Better UI for the marketing admin person, and more unified data than in AC.
Live chat and chatbot. Usually it's either one or the other but with Gist you can do both seamlessly.
Plan limits can be confusing. For example, there is a monthly charge for support and a monthly charge for "growth," plus there's a separate charge depending on how many contacts and seats you have. Perhaps this is normal in the industry, but it can make it a little challenging to understand the bill every month.
The vast amount of features means development will never be as fast as you'd like it to be (even though they release updates all the time). This may not actually be a valid concern, and it certainly isn't unique to Gist (who doesn't have a wishlist they're waiting on their favorite SaaS to get to?), but I do believe the likelihood of being stuck without your desired feature being developed goes up a lot as the product gets bigger and bigger.
Email deliverability has been less than perfect in the past, but it has improved drastically in the last year.
We will most likely not use Lyris LM for much longer. We have recently been offered to utilize a different software that better meets our needs, is current, user friendly, and has fantastic reporting capabilities.
Gist is a quite reliable service with a lot of added values. We don't need to pay for different Saas for these important features. If I had an issue the team was super responsive and helpful, that is essential for every business. The email delivery is great, so virtually no email has landed into spam folder
It’s pretty simple, but it does a lot so there are more complicated features which depend on an individuals ability for software implementation. I am not an IT expert and I’ve managed to implement everything myself, others that are more tech-minded may find everything easier.
Fantastic support. Ask a question, get an answer within 24 hours every time. And sometimes within a few minutes. They've always come through for me, helpful and, even when it's an issue on my end, they point me in the right direction.
We selected Lyris LM based on cost, the fact that we can create custom reports and the way that they handle bounced emails just to name a few, It is easy to use and we have control of who can and cannot use. With a virtual list I can create a list or take a list down at any given time without filling out a form or contact with my provider and my list looks as if it is coming from my own server @museum.com.
Gist combines all our previous products into one application and adds many more features that would require more apps. Gist is excellent and a no-brainer all-in-one application when compared to having to manage multiple applications at higher cost. The support from the whole Gist team has been extremely responsive.
They are perfect for me as a someone who needs a lot of bang for the buck. The chat messenger device on my website alone has brought me new prospects that I did not have to spend money recruiting.
I am able to save hours of time with the automated emails that are GDPR compliant.
I don't have to pay for a designer to have excellent looking emails either.
