Digital Marketing and Inclusive Finance: A Mechanism Analysis from the Perspectives of Cost Optimization, Efficiency Enhancement, and Resource Allocation

Inclusive finance has long been limited by information asymmetry, insufficient physical branch coverage, and the "80/20 rule" mindset, which has left long-tail customer segments underserved. The spread of digital technology offers a possible way to ease these problems. Drawing on long-tail theory, market efficiency theory, and capital cost theory, this study employs a theory-driven literature review to examine how digital marketing supports inclusive finance, focusing on its pathways, main mechanisms, and practical limits. The review indicates that digital marketing changes traditional financial service models in three main ways: it reduces information asymmetry, extends service reach, and improves resource allocation. In practice, these effects come mainly from lower costs (reducing information costs, outreach costs, and customer acquisition costs) and higher efficiency (improving information matching, operational efficiency, and customer lifecycle management). Besides, the high initial customer acquisition cost (CAC), the structural mismatch between the cost and return when providing services to low-income groups (long-tail customers) on a large scale through low-profit products, as well as the weak business sustainability, still pose significant limitations to this model. This study has constructed a comprehensive theoretical framework to understand how digital marketing supports the development of inclusive finance, while also pointing out its practical limitations.