Lyris, Inc., the online marketing expert, today announced social media enhancements to the Lyris HQ integrated online marketing suite. With Lyris HQ, marketers are now able to leverage their email marketing campaigns and messaging to empower recipients to share and discuss news and relevant topics with colleagues, fans and friends on popular social networking sites including Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Marketers can also analyze how well social media is performing in terms of reach, interaction and ROI on social networking and originating sites, with no extra integration or technical know-how needed. An added component of this new functionality is the ability for marketers to better understand, segment and report inbound engagement from many social networking sites.

Marketers that want to tap into Web 2.0 with Lyris HQ can now:

• Leverage email marketing campaigns and messaging on 10 social sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg, Furl, StumbleUpon, Newsvine, del.icio.us, Google Bookmarks and Reddit; the Web 2.0-version of forward to a friend.
• Use new Web analytics to easily track where interest and results are coming from and see real-time measurement from social networking and viral marketing efforts.
• Maximize integrated marketing strategies and scale messaging across networks by using tools to measure metrics, track click-throughs and gauge the success of Web 2.0 initiatives.

“We are always looking for ways to enhance our email communications and broaden the reach and value of our online marketing efforts,” said Sylvia Sierra, senior vice president of corporate audience development, Access Intelligence. “We’re seeing more of our professional audience engage in social networks and are excited to see Lyris adding this new functionality.”

Consumers are more actively engaged on social networks than ever before and the demand for these services continues to grow. According to IDC’s “U.S. Consumer Online Attitudes Survey Results Part III,” more than three-quarters of social networking users visit social networking sites at least once a week, and no less than 57 percent visit daily.¹ However, marketers still face challenges. A recent JupiterResearch study found that 30 percent of social marketers said figuring out which tactics suit their campaign goals continues to be their top challenge when engaging with social networks.²

Marketers believe social media has an impact on marketing results, but many struggle with capturing key metrics and justifying spend on Web 2.0 initiatives to senior executives. Lyris HQ’s integrative nature allows marketers to understand how successful a company’s social media campaigns are, whether or not they are linked to an email campaign. They can see, on a granular basis, when and from where an end user arrives to their site and what message or conversation generated the response.

“End users are spending more time on social networking sites and expect better content and more meaningful conversations as a result. Marketers see the need and opportunity to engage with users on social networking sites, but many don’t have the resources or ability to manage new campaigns, track their effectiveness and justify the spend,” said Blaine Mathieu, chief marketing officer, Lyris, Inc. “Lyris HQ’s social media enhancements allow marketers to broaden the reach and ROI of their online campaigns to the ever-growing number of users spending time and consuming content on social networking sites.”

Availability

Lyris HQ’s social media enhancements are available immediately to new and existing customers. For more information please visit: http://www.lyris.com.

About Lyris, Inc.

Lyris, Inc. (OTCBB:LYRI) is the online marketing expert delivering the right mix of software technology and industry knowledge to help its customers simplify their marketing efforts and optimize campaign ROI. Through the delivery of the industry’s first on-demand integrated marketing suite, Lyris HQ, and knowledge-sharing community, www.lyrishq.com, to secure and reliable on-premise solutions, including Lyris ListManager, Lyris provides customers the right tools to optimize the management, collaboration and execution of their online and mobile marketing initiatives. These sophisticated, yet easy-to-use tools provide marketers a suite of best-of-breed applications for managing email marketing campaigns, publishing and managing Web site content, creating landing pages, optimizing Web sites and search engine marketing. Clients include ACCESS Systems Americas, Adobe, American Apparel, Body Glove, Johns Hopkins University, JupiterMedia and Nokia. For more information, please visit www.lyris.com or connect on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lyris. The company is based in Emeryville, Calif.

The statements in this news release relating to matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements based on management’s beliefs and assumptions using currently available information and expectations as of the date hereof, and are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties, including risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in Lyris Inc.’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission available at www.sec.gov. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot give any assurances that these expectations will prove to be correct. Lyris assumes no duty to publicly update or revise any such statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

¹ IDC, U.S. Consumer Online Attitudes Survey Results Part III, By Karsten Weide and Caroline Dangson, http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21540708

² JupiterResearch, Social Marketing Scorecard, 2008, By Emily Riley and David Card, http://www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/research:concept/1231/id=100429