Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses. Some marketing is done by affiliates on behalf of a company.

Marketing is an ongoing practice to capture customer’s attention towards a product or service. It is the core of all the business practices, without which any business will prove to be a colossal failure.

According to Philip Kotler, “Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with other”.

In the words of Cundiff and Still – “Marketing is the term used to describe collectively those business functions most directly concerned with the demand stimulating and demand-fulfilling activities of the business enterprise”

Marketing has been defined by the American Marketing Association as – “Marketing is the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user”.

The essential elements of Marketing are as follows:

• Two Parties- There are atleast two parties-buyer or customer on the one hand, and seller or marketer on the other.
• Exchange of Value- Exchange of goods and services between the seller and the buyer take place for a valuable consideration. In other words, the parties have something viewed valuable by each other. That means the buyer can offer value and the seller can offer goods which are perceived to be of value by the buyer.
• Freedom- The parties are free to interact and accept or reject the offer of each other.
• Satisfaction- Marketing satisfies the needs of both the parties. The consumer gets want satisfying goods and services and the seller gets value in terms of money for his offering.