Session: B2B Interactive Marketing Strategies

I popped by the B2B Interactive Marketing Strategies session this morning. Business audiences are certainly harder to aggregate online. All panelists agreed on this. They also seemed on the same page when it came to big brands often making big mistakes with this audience.

According to eMarketer, the B2B audience today represents 12.8 percent of total online ad dollars. This is projected to hit 14 percent by year end. While slow growth is expected in both short- and long-term outlooks, we need to take a step back and consider a few things we're doing with the existing audience. Think of a few top B2B brands and check out the sites. What do you see? Then look at B2C sites. Almost everywhere you look, you'll see smatterings of business-related copy. The brands are failing to differentiate the content with the different audiences.

The panelists and audience harped on the misuse of Flash. (Seems to be the topic of conversation in most sessions and hallway discussions here.) My pal Scot McLernon of CBS MarketWatch spoke of their use of "intramercials." He said, "It's a small price to pay to see content 24/7 that you can pull anytime you want." Hmm…