Digital Marketing Empowers Rural Industrial Revitalization: Effect, Mechanism, and Heterogeneity Evidence from China

Abstract

This study examines the influence of digital marketing on rural industrial revitalization in China using panel data from 30 provinces over a ten-year period. Employing a two-way fixed-effects model, a two-step mediation model, and an instrumental variable approach, the empirical analysis yields three principal findings. First, digital marketing exerts a significant and robust positive effect on rural industrial revitalization. Second, technological innovation and urban-rural integration jointly serve as dual mediating channels through which digital marketing indirectly promotes rural industrial revitalization. Third, heterogeneity analysis reveals that the enabling effect of digital marketing is more pronounced in regions with non-agricultural industrial structures and in non-major grain-producing areas. These findings enrich the literature on the digital economy and rural revitalization, and offer evidence-based policy implications for differentiated rural industrial development strategies.