The Effects of Digital Transformation on Marketing Strategy of Traditional Cultural Enterprises: A Case Study of Southern Weekly

Abstract

With the rapid development of digital technology and new media platforms, the marketing model of traditional cultural enterprises has increasingly struggled to adapt to competition in the digital era. Before undertaking digital transformation, many traditional print media enterprises, including Southern Weekly, faced a mounting survival crisis marked by shrinking print circulation, declining advertising revenue, and a rapid shift of readers toward online and mobile platforms. This study aimed to examine how digital transformation reshapes the marketing strategy of traditional cultural enterprises, and to explore how internal strengths and weaknesses, together with external opportunities and threats, drive the reconstruction of the marketing mix and its resulting effect on marketing performance. This study adopted a qualitative research methodology, using Southern Weekly as the research case. Secondary data were collected from Southern Weekly’s official website, mobile application, and WeChat official account, and were analyzed through a theory-driven framework combining PEST analysis, Porter’s Five Forces model, SWOT analysis, and the 4Ps Marketing Mix, further supported by Vertical Integration Theory, Marketing Channel Theory, Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Theory, and Long Tail Theory. The findings showed that, shaped by supportive policy conditions and intensifying platform competition, Southern Weekly reconstructed its marketing mix through diversified digital content products, a subscription-based membership system, a self-controlled multi-channel distribution structure, and an integrated cross-platform promotional strategy, thereby achieving measurable improvements in revenue diversification, user engagement, and market competitiveness. The study concludes that digital transformation functions as a key driving force behind the reconstruction of marketing strategy in traditional cultural enterprises, and recommends that such enterprises treat content quality as a core advantage, build self-controlled digital channels, and establish a dynamic marketing-management mechanism, while future research may extend these findings through multiple-case comparison and quantitative validation.

Keywords: digital transformation, marketing strategy reconstruction, SWOT analysis, 4Ps marketing mix, traditional cultural enterprise, Southern Weekly