Good clothes don't have to be expensive.
Neither does recruiting.
1967
Retail
1.300 stores in 7 european countries
The challenge
“Zeeman is well known for its clothing stores – but as an employer brand it has not yet entered the minds of the general public,” explains Inge de Graaf, Corporate Recruiter at Zeeman. The company lacks a marketing strategy for a permanent recruiting pipeline.
In order to develop a tailored campaign approach to strengthen Zeeman’s employer brand and continuously reach and hire the required target groups in retail, VONQ addresses Zeeman’s recruiting challenges and hiring goals.
Despite its many locations, the company’s HR department is very small. To combat its shortage of service and back-office staff, the recruitment team relies on recommendations from the team in the local stores. It was a challenge for Zeeman to mitigate the shortage of employees in part time, full time and store management. Hiring temporary workers was a short-term solution to meet the need, but too expensive in the long run. Zeeman is widely known for its stores, but more often had to be considered as an employer.
The main goal of Zeeman’s recruitment marketing campaign is to reduce the number of open ‘store vacancies’ as quickly as possible. Hiring temporary employees does not fit with Zeeman’s vision, nor is it a long-term solution. In addition, Zeeman’s recruitment process needed to be reviewed. A lot of time and effort has gone into this over the past period, resulting in some nice efficiency improvements.
The solution
Developing a flexible & effective recruitment marketing strategy. Creating a suitable recruitment marketing strategy is the backbone of a well performing campaign and consists of selecting the right channels, campaign content and its continuous measurement of success.
The primary goal of Zeeman's Recruitment Marketing Campaign is to reduce the number of open 'store vacancies' as quickly as possible, as hiring temporary staff through an employment agency to keep stores open is quite expensive and does not promote job satisfaction. To achieve these goals, VONQ developed a flexible recruitment marketing strategy where Zeeman had the ability to change targeting locations on a monthly basis to those where recruitment needs were highest.
To get the target group in touch with Zeeman's employer brand, it is important to distribute vacancy and employer branding ads through selected online channels. For an optimal candidate journey, the candidate needs between 8 - 12 touch points with Zeeman to be convinced to apply.
“VONQ has a proven track record regarding Recruitment Marketing strategies. Their previous experience with similar target groups gave us useful insights in establishing the recruitment strategy. The ability to scale up to other countries if necessary is also important to us.”
Inge de Graaf, Corporate Recruiter at Zeeman
1. Increase brand awareness via Google and Social Media among the desired target group
To position Zeeman as the Employer of Choice in the eyes of their target audience and thereby increase online reach for open positions on Zeeman’s career page, VONQ’s Social Media and Google experts built an awareness campaign including Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook and Google Display. Image but also Video ads are an excellent way to increase awareness for Zeeman as a top employer and to get attention of the audience through precise targeting.
This way, among others, Zeeman generated 1.454.448 video impressions via one of the TikTok ads. In total, Zeeman managed to generate more than 9 million impressions via Facebook/Instagram. For example, on one of the ads above, the textile company received 1,071,527 impressions. At the beginning of the campaign, numerous A/B tests were carried out to discover which content resonated best with the target audience.
2. Promotion of targeted job offers via social media and selected job boards to drive engagement
The next step was to use the newfound attention on Zeeman as an employer to advertise jobs by using specific content and highlighting unique benefits. This way, candidates who have been in touch with Zeeman in the past through the awareness campaign via will be nudged towards applying for a job during selected social media platforms.
In this phase, Facebook, Instagram and Google Search ads are used to convince the candidates to apply for a specific job. On the ads above, Zeeman was able to get 199.208 impressions on Instagram and Facebook advertisements.
Google Search is a great opportunity for Zeeman to be listed as one of the best results in Google above organic results. This maximizes the visibility and findability of Zeeman’s career options. Looking at the objectives defined and Google Search results achieved, Zeeman reached 223.373 impressions. This proves the relevance and that the targeting fits with the audience.
3. Boost performance with real-time dashboard and consultancy to constantly monitor success
Zeeman can now flexibly adjust the targeting radius per advertisement on a monthly basis to those areas where staffing needs are the highest. This allows the budget to be used efficiently according to need and minimizes media spend losses.
In addition, to keep control over the performance of each ad, Zeeman uses VONQ’s performance dashboards, which provides insights into campaign results and the overall channel performance for optimization. This enables Zeeman to provide comprehensive information and advice to management at all times and allows the company to run small and large employer branding campaigns and analyze their impact.
