LinkedIn's Olivier Legrand unplugged...!

Olivier Legrand oversees LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions business across Asia Pacific and Japan regions. He is based out of Singapore. Olivier has a wealth of experience in the online marketing space.  He has been in this field for more than a decade and a half. Before joining LinkedIn in February 2012, he was General Manager, Asia at The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.  Legrand was elected Chairperson for the Interactive Advertising Bureau Southeast Asia (IAB SE Asia) Singapore Chapter in February 2014.

His current priority at his job is managing and building a world class teams across the region with existing presence in Australia, India, Singapore (SEA) and Hong Kong (NEA).

An expert in social selling, Legrand elaborates how sales organisations can tap into their existing social network to find, engage, and develop relationships with the right buyers on LinkedIn. He also discusses LinkedIn growth and roadmap in India. Excerpts of an exclusive interview with adgully.com:

Adgully(AG): Can you throw some  light on social selling ?

Oliver Legrand(OL): Few years back, we built an amazing business depending upon our recruitment size. Based on certain number of recruiters on a platform, we thought of how to help people to be successful on that particular platform. It was tricky and we really wanted it to be a good experience. When you think about the concept of building your identity and becoming a very good seller, you should understand your customers, prospects and improve your connections. Connections should be such that people must recognize you after years and come up to you. Social selling is all about how relevant you become by knowing your customers and your company. You should also know how to build a relationship with your customer.

AG: It would be wonderful if you could share the highlights of the research you have done?

OL: The research was on a group of individuals in the age group of 18- 29. The way they connect, engage and consume is a whole new world for most marketers. The buyers’ journey has changed for all of us, particularly for these individuals. Banks and companies are interested in these groups. These individuals will receive massive amount of money from their parents and their families, and it is such a big part of the population. Interestingly, they were open to do business with non financial services brands. We asked those individuals how they would engage. Findings were interesting, they said they were ready to engage in bank’s financial services and that they trust brands like Google and Apple. Financial banks have to build the same trust that brands like Apple and Samsung have built. These individuals require information from the bank and not pre-packaged solution. They will never give away their money and ask to do whatever you want, they consider themselves as educated professionals.

AG:Could you give us the sense of Indian market in terms of subscribers and advertisers?

OL: India has 30 million members and is the second largest community globally, so it is a very important market for us. It is also one of the fastest growing countries. There is the US, the UK, Brazil and India. We have been doing business in India for the past five years. We have offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, and we expected a growth of 80- 90 million in this market by offering better services to both our members and customers. There is a lot of room for us to grow.

AG:  What kind of growth potential do you see in social selling?

OL: Huge! In fact it would be more than growth. It’s not just about being smart and doing things differently, buyers are changing their behaviours. They don’t respond in the same way to the campaigns anymore, you need to make strong a content to build a relationship. Social selling will flourish immensely in the decades to come.

AG: Take us through LinkedIn's lead accelerator programme?

OL: American Express is used in India as well as North America and it helps connect to top activities. They spend a lot of money to drive people to their website. Driving the right people to your website is great but the conversion of that visit into a customer is complex. The individuals visiting your website must be the right people working in the right industry. If you do a good job, you may be able to collect five emails. Five of those people are going to come visit your website finding it interesting and fill a form and send you emails which will have strong messages. There will be email marketing. Out of those five people, one will open your email and might agree to be your customer. If you drive 100 people to your website, those 100 people should be the right ones, the signal of visiting your website must be strong.