Marketing communication on the axis of digitalization: A comparative analysis of the effect of industry 4.0 on consumer purchasing behaviors in classic and digital dimensions

Industrial revolutions have emerged over the years and can be thought of as systems that allow people to produce more products in less time. Industry 4.0, also called the 4th Industrial Revolution, has emerged in this context. Many people believe that Industry 4.0 is equivalent to digitization. However, this belief is not true. Digitization is a fundamental component of Industry 4.0 and it is not possible for companies to realize Industry 4.0 transformations without digitalization. The industrial revolutions that have emerged over the years have also directly affected the methods in which companies market their goods and services. From this perspective, it can be said that marketing activities are divided into different periods. Digitalization has a great role in the concept of Marketing 4.0, which is the last point of marketing. The effect of digitalization, which is one of the common points of Industry 4.0 and Marketing 4.0, on consumer behavior is a subject researched by academics. At this point, research has focused more on consumer goods. It is an issue that needs to be investigated whether the results for consumer goods show parallelism in purchasing industrial materials. From this point of view, the thesis study was designed to reveal which methods the companies selling industrial materials should use in order to influence their consumers. It has been tried to understand what should be the distribution of Classical methods and Digital methods in the marketing activities of the companies. At this point, the Survey method was preferred in order to collect information from the users. In the survey, prepared questions were used to understand whether users prefer digital methods or classical methods at different stages of their purchasing journey.