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Strategic approach:
Strategic approach: Storia.ro’s ambition was to become the 1st destination in the real estate category by the end of 2022 by attracting the greatest number of unique visitors.
Storia.ro was the challenger brand of the real estate category in Romania. Since its launch, Storia’s mission was to help buyers and sellers make the best real estate decisions, which meant constantly improving the user experience. At the start of 2022, Storia’s main competitor Imobiliare.ro was the leading brand in the category with 13% more unique visitors. Besides the long history on the market and a more category relevant name, Imobiliare.ro was also in the middle of a 360 repositioning & rebranding campaign.
Despite Storia’s best efforts to constantly improve its platform it was frustrating to see Imobiliare.ro catching up fast, constantly leaving Storia.ro with little to no room for differentiation. Even more problematic, Storia.ro and Imobiliare.ro had a big overlap in listings (over 50% duplicated).
To win in the category, with a smaller communication budget, Storia.ro had to rethink its entire role in the process of finding the right home.

Storia’s purpose was to add value in the decision-making process. For this it was extremely important to understand what buyers, sellers and agents WANT and what they were MISSING.
Buyers want more in-depth info. Listings are filled with cliches, everyone using the same info to describe properties. Data from Search Engine Ads, Search Trends and Social Media Listening Tools showed that people interested to buy or rent were searching way beyond the square meters and prices. They were interested in any extra information like traffic in the area, school proximity, cultural landmarks, green areas, things to do in the neighborhood etc1.
Sellers want more control and ability to influence the sale. They needed fact-based benefits to promote their properties beyond the notorious “5 minutes to subway” or “walking minutes to the city center”. And an easy way to display it in the platform. Whenever the sale drags out, untapped potential turns to frustration that the agents don't do enough to sell their home2.
Agents needed surroundings insights to close the deals. Agents were interested in referrals to increase their portfolio of clients. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Data revealed referrals were directly linked with the valuable information agents provided to their clients beyond the description listed in the property ad. Whenever agents failed to provide additional information, buyers and sellers had the tendency to skip the agent just to save up on the commission3.
We continued to investigate the general discontent with the real-estate category and the conclusion was crystal clear: the real-estate market was rich in listings and poor in relevant information that could help people make better decisions. No wonder 31% of the Romanian house owners end up regretting the acquisition, way above the European level that is below 20% .
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