Employer Branding at SEEBURGER Bulgaria
Developing a distinctive employer branding strategy for a major subsidiary of a multinational German IT company.
How it all began…
In the spring of 2021, SEEBURGER Bulgaria reached out to us to craft an employer branding and marketing strategy aimed at boosting their visibility and appeal within Bulgaria’s competitive IT industry.
This project stood out as particularly compelling. At the time, SEEBURGER had been operating in Bulgaria for 22 years and employed approximately 250 people. Despite their strong, family-oriented corporate culture, they faced challenges in attracting new talent. The root cause was clear: SEEBURGER’s brand recognition within Bulgaria’s IT job market was relatively low. While recruitment had been straightforward during the company’s first two decades, the rapid expansion of the IT sector and fierce competition for skilled professionals created significant hurdles. Compounding the issue was the fact that employer branding efforts had been minimal until then.
Basically, we had to start from scratch…
Our journey began with an intensive 3-month workshop structured into three key phases: Learn, Define, and Build. These foundational steps laid the groundwork for the next stage: implementing the employer branding strategy. This implementation phase was supported by regular reflection sessions, enabling us to conduct ongoing analysis, gather feedback, and drive continuous improvements.
Learn
The first phase centered on gaining crucial insights into the company, its business operations, and history, as well as the Bulgarian IT industry and job market. Participants took part in interactive discussions and learning modules designed to introduce key concepts and frameworks, providing a deeper understanding of the landscape and the company’s positioning within it.
Define
In this crucial second phase, we worked closely together to clearly define the strategy, setting specific goals and objectives. Emphasis was placed on identifying key needs and challenges, ensuring a strong foundation was established to address them effectively in the subsequent phases.
Build
The third phase focused on creation. We developed the necessary assets and actionable plans to support the achievement of our defined objectives. Through a series of collaborative meetings with both internal and external partners, along with hands-on activities, we built strategic frameworks and finalized the key assets, including the website, brand book, graphics, social media channels, ad accounts, and more.
Implement
With the plans in place, we entered the implementation phase, executing the strategies in real-world settings. Consistent, tailored activities across social media, the website, PR materials, media outreach, new partnerships with key stakeholders, events, and more became integral to our daily operations.
Evolve
The final phase focuses on growth through reflection and adaptation. We regularly assess outcomes through feedback analysis, gaining valuable insights that drive continuous improvement. This ongoing evolution strengthens resilience and fosters innovation, ensuring the strategy and its implementation remain dynamic and effective.
‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’
Sun Tzu
Let’s Learn
Our journey began by immersing ourselves in the company’s history, both globally and nationally, its business operations, and past efforts in employer branding and recruitment strategies. We identified key pain points the company was facing and gathered valuable insights into the IT industry in Bulgaria and its job market.
Throughout this phase, we engaged participants in interactive discussions and interviews, ensuring diverse perspectives were captured. The gathered information was then structured and presented to the directors for their approval and feedback.
Next, we dove into defining the employer branding strategy to address the identified challenges. We outlined clear objectives, established the company’s core value proposition as an employer, and determined the key messages for communicating the company’s business and core values.
We then focused on how the employer branding and company culture would be embodied internally—through office design, the engagement of brand ambassadors, and other initiatives. Additionally, we mapped out the environment in which SEEBURGER Bulgaria would be positioned, analyzing the Bulgarian IT job market, including key characteristics, trends, competitors, and competitive factors. Finally, we defined our target audience and created personas representing the ideal employees we aimed to attract.
Now, how about we define
And then we built…
With the employer branding strategy clearly defined, we had the foundation upon which we developed the necessary assets and actionable plans to achieve the defined objectives. By collaborating with both internal and external resources, we created frameworks and finalized key assets such as the website, brand book, graphics, social media channels, and ad accounts.
Once the marketing infrastructure was in place, we shifted focus to the marketing strategy designed to help us reach our goals. We adopted a 360° marketing mix approach, crafting a detailed plan for each component to ensure a comprehensive, effective execution.
The Marketing Mix:
‘“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Aristotle
The SEEBURGER Bulgaria website:
The implementation – The benefits of the marketing synergy
With the plans in place, we entered the implementation phase, bringing the strategies to life in real-world settings. Consistent and tailored activities across social media, the website, PR materials, partnerships with key stakeholders, events, and more became integral to our daily operations.
By consistently executing the full marketing portfolio, SEEBURGER reaped synergistic benefits, achieving an overall impact far greater than the sum of its individual activities.
This integrated 360° approach also enabled the company to embark on more innovative and multifaceted projects, reaching new heights beyond initial expectations.
Even after the strategic foundations were established and the marketing efforts fully underway, we remained actively engaged with SEEBURGER throughout their journey. We maintained regular communication to monitor the implementation of the marketing strategy, provide necessary updates to the brand strategy, and review performance results, market trends, and innovations.
This ongoing collaboration ensures SEEBURGER stays on track and maintains a strong competitive edge in the market.
Evolving through time
The challenge we were facing at SEEBURGER Bulgaria was the fact that we were missing know-how on how to build a local marketing strategy as well as experienced specialists who can effectively put it in motion once defined. We reached out to Yantria due to the many recommendations we got from our professional networks on their work with other companies which collaborated with Yantria on various projects.
What makes me happy working with Yantria is their professional approach when analyzing various cases, positive but at the same time objective attitude to all participating stakeholders, high diplomatic skills, ability to work with tight schedules as well as farsightedness in respect to the development of various scenarios. I can only recommend Yantria as working with them is a pleasure – it’s easy and enjoyful. Everything seems to be not only easier, but also achievable and motivates you to invest more from yourself.
Personally, I must say that Martin integrated exceptionally fast in our company environment and all colleagues from all teams both locally and globally recognized his professional skills and ease of collaboration. He possess exceptional expertise in the field and a very human approach!
Svetlana Bovianski, Head of HR and Administration at SEEBURGER Bulgaria
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