Dear Mr. Internet: I have a growing e-mail list of subscribers to my online newsletter which has been a great source of new business for me. The problem is, as the list size increases, it becomes more difficult and time consuming to manage. Is there some easier way to grow and manage large lists like mine? Debbie Dejesus Owner / Manager Grass Roots Realty Grass Valley, CA

Dear Debbie:

You are running into the classic "scalability" problem associated with e-mail. On the surface it would seem that sending e-mail to a list should be just a "push of the button" whether your list has a few hundred names or tens of thousands. As you are finding out, that is simply not the case!

As your e-mail list size approaches 1000 or more names, here are some of the list management issues you will face:

• Bounce-backs - sending a message to a valid e-mail address does not guarantee it will get through. Sometimes a message "bounces back" which makes the address appear invalid (probably due to a temporary e-mail server problem). It is important to have a way to handle these without eliminating addresses unnecessarily (since you undoubtedly worked hard to obtain them!)

• Subscription Requests - doing these manually is too time consuming if you are aggressively growing your list. Also, you should have some automatic mechanism for verifying the subscription request before someone is added to your list. This is known as "double opt-in" and is important to have for large lists so that subscribers are not added without their knowledge or permission —otherwise you risk being accused of spamming.

• Unsubscribe Requests - this can become maddening for larger lists if you don't have an automatic way to handle these! For example, someone on your list wants to unsubscribe, but uses a different e-mail address to send the unsubscribe request than what is stored on the list —making it very difficult to find them and process their request. Also, it helps to have a mechanism in place that will prevent others (i.e. malicious competitors) from unsubscribing your list members without their knowledge.

• Duplicate Subscriptions - people (especially us over 40 folk!) will sometimes forget that they have already subscribed to a list and do it again, resulting in a duplicate entry in your list. This can lead to irritated members and unsubscribe requests. Ideally there should be a way to automatically avoid the possibility of duplicate subscriptions.

These are the major issues, and there are potentially others as your list becomes large and your messages more sophisticated. Traditional e-mail software and many of the so-called online list management services are just not equipped to handle the above situations well for large lists.

Fortunately however, there is a resource available that was designed specifically for the easy management of large e-mail lists.

The Mother Of All Listserv Software...

Lyris is generally considered to be one of the best "industrial strength" e-mail list management software programs available. In fact, I personally use it to manage my free ePOWER! NEWS online newsletter service for online real estate professionals which has many thousands of subscribers.

Once configured properly, Lyris helps you to automatically handle the large list problems mentioned above. For example:

• Bounce-back Management - you can set how many times an e-mail address bounces back before the system regards it as a "bad" address;

• Automatic Double Opt-in Subscription Management - people can subscribe via a blank e-mail to a special list address or through a Web interface. In either case, you can configure the system to send out a special confirmation message that must be replied to before someone is subscribed to your list;

• Automatic Unsubscribe Request Management - you can embed a special e-mail unsubscribe request address into each message you send to your list that is unique to the subscriber. If they use this to request being removed from the list, it will work regardless of what e-mail address they used to send the request. You can even configure to send out a "remove confirmation" message that will a) allow the subscriber to change their minds and re-subscribe and; b) request their reasons for unsubscribing —insight that may help you to modify your newsletter to increase its value to the subscribers;

• Automatic Duplicate Subscription Prevention - the Lyris system will simply not allow duplicate subscriptions (i.e. using the same e-mail address) for any list. If someone tries to subscribe to a list they currently belong, the system will send them a message indicating they are already subscribed.

If the Lyris system sounds like just the ticket for your large e-mail list management, it is —with just a few provisons...

The Devil Is In The Details

First of all, Lyris is not inexpensive —few individuals or brokerages can afford to purchase it outright. However, there are many ISPs that will "rent" you use of the software and charge you according to the number of lists, their size, and the total number of messages sent. The pricing for this service tends to be all over the map. However (as of this writing) the least expensive one I've found (and currently use) is Media3.net, an ISP located in Massachusetts. You can run several Lyris based lists through them for considerably less than what other providers are charging.

Lyris is also not exactly simple to set up, initially — once it is however, it practically runs itself. To help you avoid several extra hours of confusion and set up headaches, I've included examples from the Lyris set up of my free online ePOWER! NEWS newsletter below:

• List Settings - the most difficult part of configuring the Lyris system. (NOTE: this settings example is for an "announcement" type list that would be used to send an e-mail newsletter. Other kinds of lists like discussion lists may use setting values different from what is shown.)

• Subscription Confirmation Message - sent out when someone subscribes to the list. It enforces a "double opt-in" list subscription policy since subscribers must reply to this message to be accepted to the list.

• Welcome Message - sent out when someone confirms their subscription to the list.

• Good Bye Message - sent out when someone unsubscribes from the list.

The examples above (modified for your own use) will help you save hours of initial set up time for your first list. And you never have to worry about becoming "too big" for the Lyris system. It was designed to handle lists of over 1,000,000!

E-mail continues to be the "killer-app" of the Internet. As your e-mail marketing continues to grow and become more sophisticated, you will need the proper tools, like Lyris, to handle the job —so it doesn't do a "job" on you!

Article Resources:
Media3.net - one of the least expensive Lyris list hosting services available.	Lyris.com - where you can find out more about the Lyris e-mail management system.