Interview with Wu Sijie: Marketing Strategy Choices for Small Banks Amid Large Banks’ Business Down‑shift

1. Deep‑Operation Era: Challenges for Small Banks

Data from the People’s Bank of China shows that large‑state banks’ share of new RMB loans rose from 34.79% in 2018 to 52.18% at the end of 2024, while small‑ and medium‑size banks fell from 53.74% to 37.61%. The shift reflects inclusive‑finance policies, a low‑interest environment, and large banks’ strategic move from scale expansion to deep‑operation, which compresses the development space of smaller banks.

Wu Sijie, Assistant Vice President of Beijing Lingyan Technology Co., identifies three concrete pain points:

Policy + net‑interest‑margin squeeze: Inclusive‑finance directives push large banks into county‑level lending and SME services, while a slowing economy and falling rates erode traditional profit models.

Large‑bank down‑shift reshapes competition: Big banks leverage cost advantages for price wars and use fintech to lower acquisition costs, forcing the industry toward localized, differentiated deep‑operation.

Digital capability deficit: Small banks suffer from technology gaps, data silos, poor customer profiling, and weak scenario integration, leading to client attrition.

2. Four Key Levers for Marketing Transformation

To break the “weak‑stay‑weak” cycle, Wu proposes four precise focus areas:

Build a solid digital foundation: Invest in technology stacks, strategic alignment, and data integration to turn regional constraints into service depth.

Leverage local DNA for differentiated competition: Use flat, agile management and deep local resource integration to create a “non‑standard” scenario advantage that large banks cannot replicate.

Deep customer insight for sustained marketing: Conduct granular regional research, segment customers (e.g., RFM, AIPL, lifecycle models), and design tiered value‑creation strategies for high‑value, growth, and potential segments.

Digital‑enabled offline marketing: Combine “human warmth” with data precision to reduce staff workload, boost professional touchpoints, and expand service radius through OMO‑style funnels and social‑fission toolkits.

3. Operations Accumulation as a Competitive Edge

Lingyan Technology has amassed four pillars of operational know‑how:

Customer‑model library: Multi‑source data fusion, dynamic clustering, and intelligent decision‑making enable “one‑to‑one” client views.

Marketing‑strategy repository: Precise positioning and data‑driven personalization derived from continuous operational learning.

Interactive‑play design: Gamified mechanisms (e.g., share‑for‑points, team‑unlock rewards) that boost engagement and expand reach.

Content‑asset pool: Structured libraries of activity materials, enabling rapid, personalized campaign iteration.

4. Dual‑Channel Integrated Marketing System

The online‑offline synergy creates a full‑link ecosystem—“precise reach → intelligent interaction → closed‑loop conversion.” Online channels feed data and lead generation, while offline branches and relationship managers deliver high‑touch, differentiated services, with digital tools amplifying productivity.

5. AI‑Plus Intelligent Marketing Assistant

AI is positioned as a core accelerator across four dimensions:

Customer‑model optimization: Machine‑learning on transaction, behavior, and social data to refine feature extraction, predict purchase intent, and allocate resources.

Smart recommendation: Personalized product/content suggestions based on historical behavior and preferences.

Intelligent channel coordination: Unified management of multi‑channel information to streamline resource allocation and customer journeys.

Marketing agents: Large‑model‑driven “digital employees” that automate activity design (intent → strategy → execution) and generate real‑time insight reports from multimodal data (text, voice, video, IM).

6. Representative Cases

Case 1: Shareholder Bank Activity‑Operation Platform

The platform provides public, reusable assets, knowledge‑base continuity, and AI‑driven content generation, reducing design effort and accelerating activity rollout.

Case 2: Southern City‑Commercial Bank Full‑Stack Marketing

By integrating online‑offline channels, AI‑enhanced customer‑manager tools, and a “human + AI” model, the bank lifted manager productivity by over 25% and achieved seamless data‑to‑action conversion.

7. Outlook

In the era of “deep‑operation” and intensified down‑stream competition, small banks must reinforce digital foundations, exploit local advantages, deepen customer insight, and expand offline depth. Lingyan Technology will continue to fuse emerging technologies, enrich operational assets, and help more banks overcome the challenges posed by large‑bank down‑shift.