As another great Summit comes to a close, we all leave with more contacts, lots of great ideas and case stories to apply to our programs, many intriguing conversations, potentially some great partnerships to explore, and definately less sleep than we need.

My top five observations and predictions for the industry:

1.  No matter what (or where) you call it , it's all about the "R." Relevancy is key to success in email marketing. As email marketing expands to include mobile distribution, social networking and multi-channel approaches, creating amazing subscriber experiences now includes not just pace and content but place.  We have more opportunity than ever and the technology is making it easier to tap multiple messaging channels to reach and engage with subscribers and prospects.Â

2. Subscriber fatigue is real. The bar is higher and we marketers need to step up and work harder to create compelling subscriber experiences. Even outside of the horrible spam, our inboxes are too full of messages that do not speak to us as individuals.  We saw some great success stories this week, but these are exceptions, still not the rule.

3.  Sender reputation matters. The ISPs and receivers are working harder than ever to battle the spammers, and legitimate senders still get caught in the trap - the dolphins in the tuna net is an analogy that was used this week.  There is still a lot of friction between marketers and ISPs/receivers, and marketers and government regulators. We as an industry need to step up here to remove some of this friction. Return Path is working on this as well, to ensure that senders with good reputations have one set of standards and guidelines, and are consistently rewarded for that behavior across the entire ecosystem. And you have my personal promise to explore this more through my leadership roles at the DMA/eec, Shop.org and BMA.

4. Segmentation isn't going far enough. I was delighted to see how many more marketers are employing segmentation in 2007 than in 2006. Bravo, bravo! But the net effect for subscribers is still that too many programs feel generic. We are not yet creating 1:many experiences that feel like 1:1 to our subscribers, and that is what is driving up fatigue and complaints and depressing response rates.

5. List growth will come from well timed, short term email experiences, rather than one size fits all opt-ins. Not every email experience has to be forever. Instead, we marketers will be able to tap into the key moments of the customer lifecycle to create unique and powerful experiences when the customer is in market. When the customer is not in market, we'll send less email that focuses on relationship rather than transaction.

Love your feedback on the program, the event and my top five -- what's your top five from this week?  Thanks to all of the Summiteers -- our great speakers and moderators, thanks to Lou Rossi, Carla Hoke Miller, superman Nick Frieze and the MediaPost team for hosting us so well as they always do (you rock!) and thanks to all attendees for your attention, ideas and participation.Â

See you in May!