The ability of SMEs to sell expensive products through digital marketing: Residential real estate sector

High expensive products are an elite's related phenomenon. Social Media helps in increasing the clients' empowerment level in the marketplace. Social media has changed consumer communication and business commerce, yet organizational leaders lack clear strategies for using social media platforms to their advantage. Several studies assess the effects of social media platforms on brand recognition and sales performance. However, not many researchers investigated how can SMEs leverage the social media advantages for selling high expensive products. To bridge this gap, this research aims to understand the effect of integrating marketing strategies for selling expensive properties in SMEs that operate in the Turkish real estate industry. Based on qualitative research and by using a convenience sampling strategy, sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with sales and marketing representatives who work at Arab-based SMEs in Turkey, to explore their corresponding social media platforms such as website pages, and social networks posts. The data was analyzed thematically in the light of the related materials reviewed. The results revealed the effectiveness and attractiveness of Turkish real estate properties. SMEs in Turkish depend greatly on digital marketing beside traditional marketing. They use digital marketing to reach more potential customers. The most employed social media platforms are social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Snapchat), websites and blogs. SMEs mostly sell medium-price properties. Noticeably, the ads and posts are not to the top-niche and need to be more professional to compete with leading developers. SMEs should evaluate their marketing and sales strategies regularly. No integration between marketing and sales strategies exists. SMEs have the potential of utilizing social media capabilities more professionally to reach higher position in the market so that they can sell high-priced properties.